Hi all,
Sorry in advance for the length of this post, it has been a rollercoaster of a day... My roommate and I have a 1.5 year old male hairless (sphynx) cat in the apartment we share on the 15th story of a high-rise in Chicago. We've been careful ever since bringing him home a year ago to keep the apartment windows either closed or just barely cracked after finding him precariously out on the edge one day, giving us a huge scare at the time.
Fast forward to today almost a year later, I stupidly opened the window in my bedroom for the first time in many months to let some fresh air in, thinking the cat was still asleep in the living room where I'd seen him 5 minutes prior. When I got up from my desk to go make a cup of coffee, I didn't notice that he had wandered into my room and to my horror recieved a frantic call from our doorman a minute later that our cat was laying on the sidewalk below.
It hurts to even write this as I'm so wracked with guilt today, but he must have managed to wriggle through the gap under the raised window and fell 15 stories straight on to the concrete sidewalk. When I got the call my roomate and I rushed downstairs asuming the worst, but he was somehow lucid and even noticed me when I approached. We immediately rushed him to urgent care where the vet stabilized him, gave painkillers, took xrays/ultrasound, and he will be resting there for the next 48 hours while they monitor his condition.
We got a call at 5pm today following the tests, and unbelievably, he looks like he will indeed survive what was a 15 story fall onto flat concrete. The vet's prognosis was a tiny tailbone fracture, badly broken right hind leg, and bruising to the lungs and bladder. It's one of the most miraculous things I've ever experienced and am still a little in shock as to how he survived (thought I did read obsessively about it today and learned that it's a well-documented phenomenon, with records from NYC of cats surviving 30+ story falls.)
The vet has said that he should recover okay other than the broken leg. They said it's a bad break in multiple places (we haven't seen xrays or anything yet, it was all over the phone), that will require a semi-complicated surgery to repair. The vet quoted ~$8000 estimate if we got it done here in Chicago, which would be on top of the $4500 that today and the next 48 hours have already cost us.
The vet further explained to us that if the surgery simply was not feasible, amputation would be the backup option that is much cheaper. Tomorrow we're planning to call around to some clinics in wisconsin/indiana to try to see if we can get a lower quote from a place outside the city, at the advice of the friends.
The reason I'm posting is to seek advice from any pet owners or vets on this sub who might have experience with this kind of decision. My roomate and I have little cash savings but are both employed and could borrow money from family and set up an interest-free payment plan if need be. I also had a really interesting conversation with a friend today who suggested looking in to whether or not we could fly with the cat to Mexico for a day to get the surgery done down there for way cheaper (I work for an airline so our flights would be free). Has anyone here been through anything like this and can offer their experience or recomendation? The cat has really been our emotional support animal during covid in so many ways I can't even express, and we really want to try to do everything we can (if we can afford it) to nurse him back to 100%.
I'd love to hear from anyone that's had a pet recover from something like this about what that process was like, or anyone who's been facing an expensive pet surgery and ways to possibly bring that cost down. Also, has anyone ever explored an option like flying to mexico for pet treatment? From what I read online the cost down there can be almost 1/4 of what we might pay in Chicago, but I know little about what we'd be in for with that route.
Thanks in advance! Just want our lil immortal covid companion happy and healthy again. Can't believe we're lucky enough to still have him around at all after what happened today.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/ixf6p1/our_cat_miraculously_survived_a_fall_from_extreme/
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