Sadly, he didn't. Talking to the nurse who was on duty during the day, he got worse during the day - there was obviously a degree of brain injury. And as the owner works away from home a lot (thus wouldn't be home to care for him intensively) and the cat was at least 14, the decision was made to put him to sleep.
Yes, we could have kept going. We could have fixed the jaw, done reconstructive surgery on his face, supported his systems. But with brain damage...you just don't know (often for months) if the animal is going to have any quality of life at all.
Plus this cat had already had extensive surgery for a particularly nast tumour (he looked rather gruesome at the best of times, because we'd amputated his nose about three years ago!) - and on examination it looked like it was coming back. So the tumour could have already been invading his brain, causing him to misjudge where the car was....
One of those horribly difficult calls to make - but I agree with what the vet did. I'm just bloody glad I didn't have to make it.
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Yes, we could have kept going. We could have fixed the jaw, done reconstructive surgery on his face, supported his systems. But with brain damage...you just don't know (often for months) if the animal is going to have any quality of life at all.
Plus this cat had already had extensive surgery for a particularly nast tumour (he looked rather gruesome at the best of times, because we'd amputated his nose about three years ago!) - and on examination it looked like it was coming back. So the tumour could have already been invading his brain, causing him to misjudge where the car was....
One of those horribly difficult calls to make - but I agree with what the vet did. I'm just bloody glad I didn't have to make it.