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 MEET
SOME OF OUR PATIENTS: “Charlie"
Wee Charlie was unfortunately born with a large congenital abdominal
hernia ( hole in the abdominal muscles). This meant that some
of the organs in his abdomen ( intestines and bladder) were
literally floating around free under the surface of the skin
instead of being held in place by a sheet of muscle. The owner
was faced with a stark choice - the hole was so big that the
only chance that Charlie would have was to operate and repair
it, or put him to sleep. The other kittens in the litter were
all healthy and the breeder decided it was worth trying to save
Charlie. Before he was 7 weeks old, 2 major operations were
performed to repair the hernia. Unfortunately, the hole was
so big and the kitten so small that it couldn’t be completely
closed and Charlie faced the prospect of further surgery as
he got older.
We first saw Charlie and his brother Brodie at The Veterinary
Cat Clinic when they were 8 weeks old, and to be honest, if
we hadn’t seen Brodie we would never have believed that Charlie
was as old as that! Brodie weighed 800g, normal weight and size
for his age; Charlie was almost half that weight at 450g and
looked as small and underdeveloped as a 4 week old kitten -
hardly surprising bearing in mind his poor start to life (see
photo above).
However, he was a cheeky wee soul; eating well and as bright
as his (much larger) brother. Apart from his small stature,
he was also a very strange colour! Whereas Brodie was a handsome
black and white kitten, Charlie was a mixture of black with
lots of white hairs speckling his coat. It wasn’t a colour that
any of us at The Cat Clinic had come across before and bets
were being taken on what the final colour would be…!
Kitten vaccinations usually start from 9 weeks of age but we
decided to delay Charlie for 4 weeks to hopefully allow him
to grow to the size of a 9 week old kitten, even though he would
be nearly 3 months old by then. Several weeks later we saw both
kittens for the start of their vaccinations. Charlie was still
smaller than his brother but he was looking less like a gremlin
and more like a kitten. By the time his vaccinations finished,
2 months after his first visit, he was a very respectable 2.4kg
(Brodie was 2.54kg), and was a normal sized kitten. His “speckled”
coat had turned into a magnificent glossy black with the odd
white hair here and there.
However, he was determined not to make life easy for himself:
both testicles in the male cat should have descended from the
abdominal cavity into the scrotum under the tail by birth. When
we checked Charlie’s nether regions, we found that only 1 had
made its way. Normally an undescended testicle is present somewhere
in the body, either in the groin or retained in the abdomen.
Either way it is necessary to remove it as it could cause the
cat to behave like an unneutered tomcat (fighting, spraying
urine around the house etc) but more importantly, it could become
cancerous if left. The worry was that the testicle may have
been removed during either of the operations, because it would
not have been distinguishable at such a young age. It was also
possible that it might not have developed in the first place,
given that his abdominal muscle didn't develop properly on the
same side.
 We
prepared ourselves to subject Charlie to a long anaesthetic
and a large surgical wound whilst we hunted for the testicle.
The hope was that, once relaxed under the anaesthetic, we would
be able to feel the offending article in the groin and perform
a relatively minor procedure to remove it. Luckily, this proved
to be the case and Charlie was able to go home with a small
incision in his groin and feeling just very slightly sorry for
himself. As for the hernia, the anatomy isn’t quite normal but
we are hoping that he doesn’t need any more surgery; certainly,
it isn’t hindering him in any way! As our most recent picture
show, Charlie is an extremely handsome young cat.
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