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MEET SOME OF OUR PATIENTS: “Gizmo"

Gizmo and his brother Loki arrived in Edinburgh in the summer of 2005 having travelled from a farm in Inverness. The two kittens settled well into life in the city and we saw them at our clinic for all the typical kitten events- vaccination, worming and neutering. In September of this year we saw both cats for their annual health check and booster vaccination and they were given a clean bill of health.

11 days later, Gizmo was not quite his usual self. The owners had come home from work to find a few piles of vomit and a slightly quiet cat. Gizmo, like most cats, has occasionally vomited furballs so we weren't unduly alarmed by this event. However, by the next morning, it was clear that all was not well with Gizmo and he was brought to our Bellevue clinic. Far from being the bright bouncy young cat we last saw, in came a very quiet, subdued little soul who had been retching most of the night. On examination, his heart, lungs, membranes and temperature were all normal but something wasn't quite right when his abdomen was palpated. Our vet could feel a sausage like swelling in his intestines and was suspicious that there was some form of blockage.

We can occasionally get growths in the abdomen which can do this but they generally don't bring on such sudden changes so dramatically. What else could it be? The vet wondered if it could be an intussusception, a condition where the gut telescopes in on itself, like pulling a sock inside out, but it didn't quite feel thick enough for that. Could it be a foreign body? Possible, but cats tend to be a bit more sensible about swallowing daft objects than dogs (apart from stringy things, the cat speciality). Whatever the swelling was, it looked like it was at the root of the problem with Gizmo so further investigation was needed.

Gizmo was admitted to our main clinic and the first step was to give him a sedative to allow us to palpate his abdomen more thoroughly. Another of our vets had a feel and agreed there was something not quite right. An x-ray was taken. Foreign bodies often show up as distinct shapes and densities on x-rays but we could see no obvious change in the area of the swelling. What we did see was a loop of gas in the intestines which suggested that whatever was causing the swelling was definitely causing a blockage. There was only one thing to do. We had to have a look inside.

Gizmo was given a general anaesthetic and once fast asleep we clipped his abdomen and prepared the skin for surgery. An incision was made through his skin and muscle and the abdomen was opened. The initial impression was that everything looked pretty healthy but we picked a segment of intestines and started working our way along it. Again everything was looking nice and healthy but we reached one area where the intestines were just a bit more pink than normal. We moved along a few more centimetres and the intestines became more pink. A few more centimetres again and we encountered a reddened angry area and could clearly see that this area of the intestines was distended: there was something inside which was sausage shaped and was stuck.

The next step was to look inside the intestines. A small incision was made and we immediately saw an abnormal dark colour lurking inside. This wasn't part of the body or something growing in the wall of the intestines- this was an object within the intestines which shouldn't have been there. A gentle pull with forceps showed there was some movement but a larger incision was required to fully remove the object. It was grabbed at one end and very gently squeezed out of the incision. Out came a black sausage and all the attendant staff stared at the object on the swab. In unison we cried "a furball!".

We've been aware of reports about having to surgically remove furballs from cats but this was a first in the eleven years of the Cat Clinic. Most cats will vomit furballs or they pass naturally through the body and are expelled in the faeces but this was a cracker of a furball and there was no way that was going to move in either of the ways that nature intended!

Gizmo's various incisions were closed over and we kept him in at the clinic to make sure he was recovering well and to support him with fluids while his intestines were healing. Within 24 hours he was much more like his old self and was showing a keen interest in food. We tentatively spooned a very soft, easily digestible convalescence food into our patient. He would have eaten more but we wanted to give little and often to ensure he could cope with it.

Gizmo coped fine. His recovery was completely uneventful. He was sent home soon after he started eating. We saw him back a few days after his surgery and he was back to his bright cheeky self. We have threatened Gizmo with a full body shave to reduce the amount of hair he might swallow in future but his owners are keen to ensure he remains as handsome as possible so are embarking on a thorough grooming regime to help prevent any more furball related dramas.

Above: Gizmo demonstrates how well his surgical wound was healing a few days after his operation.