Client Conversations #5

My, she’s a big cat! 

“Yes, I’m her feeder”  

*awkward silence*

You for whom I have cared

After your owners have gone

And the light has left your eyes

I lift you up

Cradle your head in the crook of my arm

Gaze softly upon your brow

and say

You were a good boy.

Making it up as you go along.

Sometimes you are faced with things that they don’t tell you about in Vet School and you just have to wing it. When I was called out at 1am to a cat which had unexpectedly had kittens, I realized this was one of those times. She had prolapsed her whole uterus, it was swollen and engorged, an angry looking mass of flesh. I had never heard of a cat prolapsing before, normally we only see it in ruminants. She had five new kittens, mewling and squirming in a washing basket beside her, still damp. Although I didn’t know how I was going to do it, I knew I had to help her. I called my nurse, and rushed back to the surgery, the cat beside me on the passenger seat in a washing basket with a towel on the top, my dog relegated to the back of the car.

I anaesthetised her and to the surprise and horror of my nurse, liberally dusted the uterus with sugar.  Sugar draws the water out of the swollen organ, reducing its size and making it more pliable. Despite my old fashioned tricks however there was no way that this one was going to go back inside the cat; when I pushed one horn in it simply involuted and folded itself up inside the other horn. There was no choice, I had to open her up. I looked at the nurse, bleary eyed and already convinced that this was fatal. “I have to go in. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it, I don’t know what to do, but we’ll work it out – we have to or these kittens are dead.” She nodded. The owner was already braced for the worst so it was do or die.

I made a midline incision and tried to orientate myself. The guts were all in order, the bladder slightly skewiff but identifiable. I hunted the ovaries and eventually found one down in the groin region. I tried to lift it but it was strung taught like a piano wire, and as I touched it I could feel it starting to give under the strain. If it ripped off it would leave a major artery loose in the abdomen, spouting blood. I had to try something different. By this time it was 3.30am and I was feeling a little desperate. But my patience was rewarded, a deeper hold, some gentle traction and miraculously the uterus was suddenly the right way round again, in my hand, inside the cat. I quickly tied off the ovaries, then took great care with the cervix – if I tied it too low she could have bladder problems for the rest of her life. It was flabby and misshapen, but it did close. Suddenly fearing that the final section might somehow fall out again, I tacked it to the inside of her abdominal wall securing it in place. I fell back against the wall and wiped my forehead whilst she got cleaned up and started to come round.

I texted the owner to say she was through the surgery and we would have to await the outcome, and waited with the cat until she woke up, snuggled in beside her kittens. I staggered off to the mattress on the floor for a few hours rest. It was 4.15am and I started work again at 8.30. I lay awake unable to sleep for another hour, high on the adrenaline, wondering how it was going down there.

When I arose in the morning she was up and feeding her kittens. The operation was a success and she went home the next day once I was sure she had suffered no ill effects. I have a friend who says that when you drive through the dark, you can’t see the whole journey, just the little bit ahead of you lit up by the headlights, but nevertheless you can make the whole journey that way.