My beautiful Tigerlily has been hit by a car, her back leg has just been pinned back together but her tail has no feeling and no use of her bladder or bowel at the moment. Has anybody else been through this and is there any hope for her, the vet says its nerve damage at the mo and this could just be due to the trauma or it could be permanent. She is only 1 yrs old and is so adorable, I don't want to lose her.

I'm so sorry about your cat Sorry I'm not much help, when I worked at a vet, a young stay cat was braught in who was hit by a car, she lost feeling from hips down (which included bladder and bowel control), couldnt even move her legs, but she very slowly got better.

Hope your little Tigerlily gets better soon and keep thinking positive, although I know its hard at this tough time ((hugs)) xx

Very sorry to hear about your cat.

Only time will tell what the outcome will be with nerve damage resulting from trauma. However we've had very similar cases here with varying injuries and loss of function and given some healing time the cats made a good recovery. Is she still at the vets?

I would also seriously considering keeping her indoors permanently from now on - so many kitties are involved each year in RTAs.

Hope she makes a quick recovery. Keep us posted

Thank you, yes she is still at the vets, its a specialist vet that deals with these kind of injuries and she will be there for a few more days yet then she has to have cage rest and hope that the nerve damage improves.

I agree, she will def be a house cat if I get her back safe and well as she still could lose the hind leg and her tail.

Sorry for posting on 2 threads, only joined today and I wasn't sure what I was doing!

Oh no, don't worry about the double posting!

I'm glad to hear you've got the specialists on board here. Just take it day by day and remember not to expect too much too soon!

So sorry to hear about your cat. my friends cat was hit by a car and broke its pelvis. It was touch and go for a while but Johnny made it. He now has a a very distinct walk .

Just spoken to the lovely nurse at the vets and she's had a really good day, eating lots, purring and playing. They are still hopeful that she might get some feeling back in her bladder and bowel as she complains and hisses at them when they try to express her bladder and take her temp!!

They will moniter her overnight again to see if she makes any attempt to use the litter tray but it must be hard for her, her hind leg was shattered and it was an open fracture. She's a fighter, no idea how she made it home, got through the cat flap and made it upstairs to let us know she was hurt!!

It certainly sounds like your tigerlily is a fighter if she made it home with such awful injuries. Hoping that she makes a good recovery and is back home with you very soon. X

Oh dear ... there seem to be so many cat victims of road accidents at the moment - not only on here, but on the pets section of my local forum as well. I suppose it's summer and they're staying out longer in the warmer weather.

I'm glad she's had a good day and is recovering. She must be feeling better if she's eating and actually wanting to play. Hope she continues to improve as quickly as she can.

Hi I'm totally new to this site and might be totally non PC to burst in with such a long post and if so I apologise!

Firstly I wanted to say really so sorry to hear about your poor kitty and to say that I know exactly what you are going through at this moment in time as one of our 9 month old kittens suffered almost the same injuries on Weds this week. It is excrutiating having to wait to see what happens as far as their bodily functions returning goes but from everything I've read it is so variable and many cats do recover in time so my priority at the moment is to give Baggy as much time as I possibly can afford to to see how he goes. Which brings me on to saying that I am a bit stressed out at the conduct of the vets who have been caring for him. If is OK I'll just share the story of what happened and hope I haven't gone on too long

Baggy was found by some of our neighbours and unfortunately it was on a rare occasion when we were all out - the neighbour didn't want to wait so he took Baggy straight to the nearest vet. Our own vet happens to be a family friend but unfortunately he has been in France on holiday - talk about bad timing all round!

The vet who took him initially was talking almost immediately about the possibility of putting Baggy to sleep because of long term incontinence problems - fortunately I was able to phone my vet who reassured me that it is ridiculously early to be talking like this and that there is still a long way to go before any conclusions can be drawn. Anyway trying to cut it short the first vet did some x-rays and told me that his tail is def broken at the base and that he'd damaged his pelvis and to give him best possible chance she wanted to refer him to a specialist centre.

I didn't question this and took Baggy there that morning. The centre did an initial consult and looked at his x-rays whilst I was there, now I'm no expert but I could see no damage whatsoever to the pelvis and neither could the surgeon - tail deffo broken though. Baggy was putting no weight on one of his hind legs and couldn't bear for it to be touched - the previous vet had made no mention of the leg at all. They said they wanted to keep him in, x-ray the leg and do a CT scan on the pelvis to double check for injury - they quoted me £1000 + VAT for this initial stuff which I was kind of expecting it to be and OKayed and they knew at this stage that I had insurance up to £4k.

They rang later to say he has broken tibia with a spiral fracture and not displaced - they said they wanted to operate on the leg this Monday and initially (as was very emotional at the time) I agreed - bill of £3k, the first vet had already taken £600 out of the insurance pot so that would have left me with £400 to keep Baggy going to assess his incontinence problems - which by my estimation would have given me at best about a week-10 days to make a decision when they had already told me it could take at least 2 months to be sure if he will recover.

So I called them back and said I didn't want the op as couldn't see the point of having a cat with a perfect leg that he'll never get chance to use as I'll be forced to have to put him to sleep cos I can't afford to keep providing him with the treatment he really needs at this stage. They tried to talk me round and got impression they weren't best chuffed but I stood my ground and said I wanted to pick him up tomorrow and take him back to my own vet to continue his care. Anyway they called this morning with update - good news is that he's bright/alert/eating and playful but still not any change in the back end dept - I enquired as to what the bill will be tomorrow and it has shot up to £2k!!!!!

After I finished choking I asked how this had happened and the girl reeled off a list of very expensive drips/x-rays/CT scan/drugs etc - get this they have charged me for initial x-ray and then for 7 additional plates, how on earth can something so small as a cat's tibia require x-rays from 8 different angles if it isn't a complex break?!! The pelvis was only x-rayed by original vet on two plates and tail on one. I really feel throughout this that I whiff a degree of them trying to just spend as much of the insurance money as possible - in terms of what is best for Baggy given the budget restraints there is no way that operating on his leg could be argued to be best course of immediate action. Has anyone else encountered this type of behaviour from vets when they have your insurance 'budget' to play with? This place claim directly from Petplan so seems like a license to print money - needless to say I've informed Petplan that any claims must be ran past me first (they got me to sign a blank cheque, sorry, petplan form on Friday which I'm now regretting slightly )

I know in the case of your cat her leg sounds as though it had to be operated on but as for long term prognosis then if you are anything like me the greater concern is the continence as if it proves difficult or impossible to express the bladder then it does seem as though it will send you down a path with almost no other option than to put them to sleep and can't bear the thought of that so have been reading up on tail breaks a lot over past couple of days.

So, to end on a positive note from what I've read there are no hard and fast rules and cats recover differently even though there are some things at this stage that give a general prognosis. Baggy is in the 50/50 camp in terms of recovery but he does have perinneal sensation which could be a promising sign - have they mentioned perinneal reaction about your little one at all?

It is so terrible when they are so young but lets stay positive and hope that having youth on their side might be a good thing - please do keep us informed of progress is still far too early to be pessimistic!