Our expert team has recently carried out lifesaving surgery on a four-month-old kitten born with a defective colon.
The tiny British shorthair cat called Duke weighed just 1.2kg – around the same as a bag of sugar – and was suffering from chronic constipation when he was referred to us.
Duke’s owners Naomi Fisher and Rob Gordon, from Burntwood, Staffordshire, said their precious pet was so ill they feared he would have to be euthanised.
Now, they’re overjoyed at his remarkable recovery, with Naomi saying: “We didn’t have many options and are so happy we gave Duke his chance to survive.
“We knew trying to manage him medically would only work for a few weeks, and then we’d have to start over again, so that wasn’t a realistic option as there was no prospect of a long-term fix.
“We weren’t ready to consider the euthanasia option, so Duke’s only chance was to undergo this high-risk surgery. Our attitude was that Duke was likely to die if nothing was done, so even if he didn’t survive the surgery, we’d at least give him that chance to be saved. Now he’s back home and doing amazingly well. He is so active and playful and has already put on nearly a kilo. We are very grateful to the surgeon Dimitri Mitrakos and the expert team at West Midlands Veterinary Referrals. Their care was excellent. As soon as we met Dimitri, we were confident we were in good hands and he has certainly worked wonders for Duke.”
Poor Duke was first referred to us when he was just three months old after weeks of suffering from acute constipation.
Dimitri, an advanced practitioner in small animal surgery here at WMR, said it was a challenging case as Duke was so young and so tiny.
He explained: “Duke was referred to us suffering from chronic constipation and pain during defecation and was not responding to conservative management at his owners’ primary care vets.
“We carried out abdominal radiographs and an ultrasound examination, which confirmed idiopathic megacolon, a dilated large intestine. This meant his muscles were no longer able to contract and push his faeces outwards, which resulted in them accumulating inside his little body. Duke initially underwent four weeks of conservative management as we tried to manage the condition with enemas, oral laxatives, and gut stimulants, as well as introducing a high-fibre diet. That medical management did not yield results, so we were left with no option other than a surgical intervention. The only benefit was the previous month’s treatment had at least allowed Duke to grow a bit more, so he would have a higher chance of surviving the surgery.
“I still had to make the owners aware of the potentially significant short-term complications and potential long-term risks of the surgery that might arise, but the operation was certainly Duke’s only chance.
“He was taken to the operating theatre, where I carried out a subtotal colectomy to address his idiopathic megacolon by removing 80 per cent of his large intestine. Surgery went well and Duke did well post-operatively, especially during the first critical week in which the worst complications tend to happen in these demanding abdominal surgeries.
“After a few weeks of intense recovery, and with his owners’ full commitment, he has finally started passing solid faeces without difficulty and he is growing now at a fast pace.”
You can follow Duke’s recovery and life with his family via his Instagram page @thedukeandduchess_.
