The Incident

Pre-reading warning: This post is about The Nudge’s broken leg with pictures. If this will upset you or gross you out – turn away now.

This was one of the worst days of my life. I’d come home from a class to find that The Nudge had been hit by a car. The result being that he had a severely broken leg and some serious bruising – but he was alive and he would recover. The doctor made copies of the x-rays for me. (All their x-rays are digital at this animal hospital. Kind of cool.)

So first, here’s The Nudge’s broken leg from two angles:

Side Angle:

From the top:

So what they did to mend the break was to put a series of rods through his arm to hold the bone in place. These rods go all the way through and are connected on either side of his arm by what MonsterKitty calls “breadsticks” and Phil calls “rocket launchers.” My wife, Miranda Kopfschmertzen and I have to clean where the rods exit The Nudge’s arm twice a day. Ew.

So the doctor opened up The Nudge’s arm, straightened out the bone and inserted the “straightening rods,” which look like this:

…and in real life, it looks like this:

Poor The Nudge has to be confined to a crate for 30 days. (He’s about 25 days into those 30 days right now.) Then for the next 30, he gets to be on limited outings. After those 60 days, then it’s a week-to-week assessment about when the rods come out.

But as long as the rods are in, The Nudge has to wear a cone. Although, I have to say that he makes it work. Its a must have for this summer’s fashions.

Here’s The Nudge in confinement:

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