What's Wrong With Marmalade? Part One
I've had several e-mails inquiring about Marmalade's health, mostly prompted by ...shall we say...his unusual appearance on Marmcam. Well, Marmalade has had a difficult year, but he's fine now.
It all started just after New Year's Day, 2002. Marmalade was having some difficulty ...eliminating.
We took him to his vet, and after numerous, highly-unpleasant kitty flushings, he was okay... for a while.
For more details on this humiliating procedure, see the trials and tribulations of a fellow orange cat named Fred at I Gave My Cat An Enema.
However, our usually boisterous boy just wasn't himself. He just wanted to sleep and be left alone. He didn't even want to cuddle up with Mango. Something wasn't right.
So it was back to the vet. Dr. Scavone and Dr. Kern examined him and decided that there were several possible problems, and the only way to determine what was wrong with our boy was to take X-rays of his intestinal tract.
The X-rays provided some important clues, but nothing truly definitive. It could be a rare, but not unusual, condition known as megacolon. This occurs in cats, dogs, and humans, and no one is quite sure what causes it. Or, it could be a hernia, which can be brought on by being overweight.
It was on to the specialist. Dr. Scavone suggested that we get Marmalade's weight down and prescribed some medication to help with the elimination problem until we could afford to take him to the specialist. The fabulous people at Triad Pharmacy custom-prepared his medications for him for several months.
Marmalade did very well on his medication, returning to an almost-normal cat life. But we always knew this was a short-term solution.
In late July, we took Marmalade to see Dr. Peacock, who specialized in veterinary surgery and had seen megacolon before. We provided him with the x-rays we had taken earlier. After examining the film, his verdict: a double hernia.
Marmalade went in for surgery on August 9, 2002. I was absolutely terrified about the whole procedure, and luckily, my husband was able to take Marmalade to the appointment. The doctor wanted to keep him overnight to make sure there were no complications. We weren't able to pick him up until the morning of August 10....
...IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER! SOME OF THE FOLLOWING PICTURES ARE NOT PLEASANT!
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