Brave Pet of the Month goes to . . . SID LEWIS!

Sid presented to our emergency team in July, after his owners had found him trapped in a window. He had managed to get himself trapped by his pelvis and his owners thought he may have been there for up to 90minutes!
They brought him straight to the vets as he was very painful and couldn’t use his back legs at all.
The team at V.E.T.S. were concerned that Sid may have broken his back, pelvis or both and proceeded to x-ray those areas, and luckily they revealed no fractures or dislocations.

It was decided to refer Sid to the specialist hospital at Bristol University- Langford Small Animal Hospital, for further investigations. You can see from the first video taken at Langford Small Animal Hospital, that Sid had no use of his back legs at all. CT and MRI scans were performed, and again these revealed no fractures and no damage to the spinal cord itself.
It was concluded that Sid had suffered a likely temporary obstruction to the blood flow to his back legs; leading to muscle and nerve damage. This type of injury is very rare and it was unknown if Sid would regain the use of his legs and control of his bowel and bladder.

Sid was prescribed pain relief and he had to be strictly rested in a cage to aid his recovery. At the beginning of August Sid was comfortable enough to start a rehabilitation programme with our Practice Manager Nichi.
Nichi and Sid's owners worked closely together over the following weeks. Sid and his owners worked hard with his home exercise plan. As you can imagine encouraging a cat to do exercises is very different to asking a dog or human!! You need lots of imagination!!
At the end of August Nichi saw an amazing improvement, as you can see in the second video, and Sid was now able to not only stand by himself but was actually walking! He also had full control of his bladder and bowels too!!
This is a huge step forward in his recovery and his owners and Nichi are now working to increase his muscle strength and co-ordination. Sid's owners have worked so very hard with Sid and his progress is thanks to them.

Sid’s recovery showed us all what an amazing difference rehabilitation programmes can make to our patients, and that sometimes there isn’t a surgery or medication that is a quick and simple answer, it is often time, patience and commitment from owner’s and that allows our patients to go on to lead a happy and healthy life.