Diesal is an adorable 3yr old cross breed boy. He used to be bursting with enthusiasm and energy and have a real lust for life.
About five months ago now, Diesal spotted a cat in ‘his’ garden on a late night toilet break. He chased the cat, and as it hopped over the garden wall, he did too.
Seconds later time seemed to freeze and i heard a stomach turning ‘bang’ , followed by an awful and nearly unrecognisable noise, which was my beloved Diesal’s scream of pain.
Fear flooded my body as i ran into the dark and empty road. There wasn’t a soul to be seen, just the deafening noise that will haunt me forever. The car had hit D underneath a parked car, and he was frantically thrashing around and hitting his head on the underside of the car. I led in the road and tried desperately to calm him and get him out, but he was stuck. I knew i had to get help, so i ran back to the house to get my phone. At this point, he thought i had abandoned him, and screamed for his life! My heart was breaking but i knew i needed help.
As i ran to the door, my neighbour thankfully saw me, and came to see what was wrong. As we ran into the road, D had dragged his crippled body out from under the car and was crawling in the road. I scooped him up, and with the help of my neighbour, was able to get him in the car and race him to the vets.
The next few days were a blur. The car had badly broken a hind leg and punctured a lung.. He was in severe respiratory difficulty, and as the bruising came out, his breathing became worse and worse. After 8 long days, he became stable enough for the vet to operate on his leg. She was confident she could save the leg with metal plates and pins, connected via an external fixator.
Poor diesal is a sensitive chap, and was traumatised for weeks and weeks. ( I was too!) He received a further 5 ops to correct the pins, which he found very sore and uncomfortable, and had frequent infection episodes, which made him feel very poorly indeed.
The pins were removed in January, and he started his twice a week physio. After months of little/ no improvement of the leg, and frequent chest infections the vets had him in for ‘investigations’. These revealed his lungs were badly damaged, and his leg had calcified in an abnormal position. They now recommended it was amputated.
I was devastated. After all the pain and suffering he had been through, he had to have another major op. I was also terrified that his lungs would not cope with the procedure,,, but thankfully all was ok.