if you don’t mind me asking, how did fergus lose his leg?
Hello! Of course I don’t mind. I’m all for spreading awareness on Fergus’s disease.
He was diagnosed at about 8 months with elbow dysplasia in both elbows. Essentially, the three bones in the elbow don’t fit together. Fergus had surgery on both elbows to correct this, what we assumed to be the only surgery he’d need. The surgery failed and his legs grew very deformed due to over calcification, so he had another surgery to correct this. That failed, so he had surgery on the worst leg. That failed again. Now, his leg was very delicate at this point, held solely together by metal plates, and during recovery unfortunately he made a wrong step and the bone snapped between the plates. His surgeon attempted to fix it but again, during recovery, the leg broke. So, he amputated it. His remaining elbow is still all metal and deformed, and he’s on life-long pain relief daily, but he’s the most resilient little boy I’ve met!
He’s the worst case his surgeon has seen, and definitely an odd one. Odd enough that his surgeon is writing a case study about him to train vet students! We think there may be some underlying issue there somewhere because the first surgery should have been it, but he is a tiny boy with tiny bones and we can never really know. All that matters is he is happy!