34 Pound Cat Looses 10 Pounds
Flash was an 8-year-old domestic short hair grey tabby cat with 4 white paws and white belly fur. And a profound belly it was! Flash ate 3 full meals a day, at the table, on a plate, just like his humans did. He really liked 2 fried eggs, 2 slices of bacon, and buttered toast for breakfast.
The day I met Flash, he weighed in at 34 pounds on the dog scale (he was too wide to fit on the cat scale.) His problem? Flash was constipated so badly that his colon had stretched and the muscle walls had weakened in a condition called megacolon.
Flash needed a surgery called a total colonectomy in order to remove the useless, floppy intestine. I called a board certified surgeon who relished the job,
“Total colonectomy was the subject of my certification work.” I basically had the surgeon who invented the surgery work on Flash! The surgeon’s eyes glowed, “Thank you so much for this wonderful case.”
No problem, if you enjoy performing surgery at the bottom of a foot-deep abdomen of kitty fat, be my guest! Unfortunately, Flash had a tiny, 2mm lump on the intestines, which was removed along with his colon.
Flash recovered quickly from surgery. Luckily, cats can live just fine without up to 90% of their colons (unlike humans.). There are side-effects.
I faced Flash’s parents, “Everything went well. He may experience some soft stool, he may have to eat special prescription food.” His parents were eager to provide any care Flash would need.
A sobering warning came next.
“The little lump turned out to be adenocarcinoma. This is a kind of cancer of the intestines. Usually, it brings a prognosis of 3 months of life after diagnosis. But in Flash’s case, it was found at surgery for another problem, so the statistics probably do not apply to Flash.”
Flash continued to do well as one, two, and then three months passed. He ate regular Fancy Feast, he had nice, comfortable formed stools, and he weighed only 24 pounds at three months post surgery!
After a year, Flash’s parents were concerned about the cancer, “How much time has he got, Doc?”
“Well, according to science, minus 9 months. Every day is a bonus!”
Flash lived four more years, virtually the lifespan of a formally morbidly obese kitty cat. And what a spoiled, beautiful boy he was!
