Received devastating news about our newly adopted cat.

We adopted a sweet 3 year old orange tabby boy on Valentine's day. He's quickly become the center of our home and we absolutely adore him. I took him to our vet yesterday to just get established, get on flea preventative, and whatnot. I'm very lucky to have an excellent and very through vet. She requested his vet records from the prior vet used by the rescue we adopted him from. I knew he had previously had urinary crystals, but nothing else particularly significant. Well, his records showed otherwise. There was a confusing diagnosis of Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease in his records from January of this year. He and several other kittens had been taken in by the rescue for a respiratory infection from the same date.The foster had not mentioned anything else from his visit for the respiratory infection, which made this even more confusing.

My vet said she would confirm it with the prior vet to make sure it wasn't a mistake or something. This evening she emailed me to let me know it was not a mistake, he does have Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease, and he'll need a costly and invasive surgery to treat it. Femoral Head and Neck Ostectomy.

Just to be clear, I don't think the rescue intentionally withheld any information from me. I know rescues are often overwhelmed and things can slip through the cracks sometimes. It likely was just a miscommunication between the vet's office and the rescue. And we didn't have reason to suspect anything when we adopted him, because so far he's been showing no concerning signs of pain or discomfort.

I'm am however, beside myself upset over him being unwell. He's an incredibly sweet and affectionate cat, and he's so clearly met to be part of our family. I have no intentions of returning him to the rescue, and we'll be working with our vet to get him the care that he needs. He's our fuzzy little monster now, and we love him.

I am feeling overwhelmed and in shock though. I can't stop crying thinking about my poor sweet little guy in pain. I haven't even known this cat a month and he's already so important to me. I am beyond worried and scared.