Continuing from our last post, vet Kevin Wood tells us more about Paws’ emergency visit to the clinic. Paws presented out of hours as an emergency after vomiting for the previous 24 hours. He had managed to bring up two small balls of what appeared to be part of a toy, although it was difficult to be sure what they were. In kittens, both diarrhoea and vomiting are potentially very serious conditions, just as they are in human babies and infants, due to rapid dehydration and changes in blood chemistry.
After feeling his belly, I was unable to find any obvious obstruction and so admitted Paws for x-rays and to put him on a drip to reverse the dehydration. The x-ray showed a very strange pattern in his stomach, and at this point I suspected that he had swallowed string. I decided to pass a camera into his stomach to retrieve the string but, whilst carrying out the procedure, felt a small mass in his intestines.
It seems that another of the small balls had become lodged in his guts, initially too far up for me to feel, but now within easy reach. I immediately took Paws to surgery where I removed the foreign body and stitched him up. He recovered well and was eating that night!
After another few nights in the hospital, it was decided that he was ready to go home where he continues to make a good recovery.
Kevin Wood
