Smokey - The $1800 Cat

Not long after we got back from Hawaii, Smokey started getting sick and was throwing up quite a bit, which resulted in an all-nighter of strange noises from him... As such, Luann took him in to see the "Cat Doctor", and the testing began. First was a test for Urinary Tract Infection (nope, that's not it), then an X-ray to see what's going on inside. It looked like his pancreas might be enlarged, so the next thing was to do an exploratory surgery to take a 'hands-on' approach. During the exploration, a nodule was found on his pancreas which they biopsied. After they closed him up, the next couple of days were spent overcoming a bit of dehydration.

Long-story-short, he didn't have pancreatitus, pancreatic cancer or something else that could have shortened his lifespan (the biopsy came back as a minor cellular growth from his spleen). Instead, it looks like he apparently ate something that made him retchingly sick. So we picked him up Saturday morning and he's at home now, convalescing from the surgery as we deal with the $1800 veterinarian's bill.

Here are some pictures of "Smokey's Crisis"...

Yeah, he had been wearing the "Cone Of Shame" while he was at the doctor's office. You can see where they shaved his forelegs so they could administer an IV and needed injections.

This was his reaction when I freed him up. It's pretty obvious that he couldn't stand to wear that 'Cone Of Shame'.

Unfortunately, this X-ray was not really conclusive.

It looks like his pancreas (the darker, wormy-thing) is enlarged, and might be inflamed. But only a 'look under the hood' would be more conclusive.

So, this is the result. He had his belly shaved for the surgery, and they closed him back up using staples. It looks like he has a zipper on his belly. We've been having an interesting time giving him his antibiotic meds, but after a couple of mis-cues, we finally have it down to a system. Now, all he has to do is stop trying to lick the 'zipper', and stop eating anything he comes across. The last couple of yakking episodes he had were for eating paper strips from the shredder, eating tinsel from a Christmas tree and eating part of a plastic shopping bag. I swear, he's worse than an infant on all fours...