Benny needs surgery :(

I'm so sad. Benny will need to have surgery to fix the front paw declawing he had 8 years ago.

4 years ago, he had to have surgery on a few of his toes on both front paws. Apparently, when the vet declawed him 8 years ago, she used the Resco Clipper Declaw Method. This entails using a guillotine-type nail trimmer to cut through the bone of the 3rd digit of the toe, from which the claw grows. Since the part of the bone from which the claw grows is removed, the idea is that the cat's claws no longer grow back (in most cases).

However, complications can arise from this method. In Benny's case, he had bone spurs in his toes as a result of the amputation of his 3rd digits. The bone spurs can cause quite a bit of discomfort and we later learned that Benny was licking, biting, and chewing at the affected toes in an effort to find relief. At the time, the solution was surgery on the infected toes to remove any bone spurs or debris. The vet didn't mention just performing a Disarticulation of all of his toes to completely remove the 3rd digit so there would be no recurrence of the bone spur problem. Had I known this was an option at the time, we would have done this.

Fast forward 4 years to today, Benny is having this problem again! On Sunday night, I noticed Benny was limping a little and would sit with his right paw in the air. I thought he was trying to be cute, but I noticed his paw looked funny. Brian grabbed him and I got a closer look. One of his toes was red, swollen and kind of purple and bruised looking. I knew exactly what was going on and called our new vet--not the same one from 4 years ago--first thing yesterday morning. Unfortunately, she was booked and couldn't see Benny until this afternoon.

We took Benny in and Dr. Furutani confirmed my suspicions. She got a close look at his toe and said it was infected and abscessed. She prescribed Benny some antibiotics to clear up the infection. She said we could either let it go and hope for the best once the infection cleared up, or go ahead and do the disarticulation on all of his toes to avoid another recurrence in the future. Benny is 8 years old now and I fear that if this problem comes up again in another 4 years, he'll just be too old and not recover as well from surgery. I really wish we had been presented with this option 4 years ago. We could have been done with all of this and Benny wouldn't have to suffer.

So, the plan is to wait until Benny's infection clears up and then go ahead with the disarticulation surgery for the rest of his toes.

I really feel terrible. Due to circumstances, I really had no control over the decision to declaw Benny and Chester 8 years ago. (BTW, Chester has never had problems with his toes...knock on wood. He was "blessed" with other problems--deafness and chronic urinary tract problems. I pray that Chester doesn't end up with this problem down the line. *sigh*) If we ever have another cat in the future, I REFUSE to declaw. We will find alternative ways to control unwanted scratching.

*** stepping down from my soap box ***