*WARNING*

Graphic images at the bottom of this article.

Milo is a young and curious cat who, like many cats, has lots of adventures outside of his home and who knows what they all get up to! But a few months ago, Milo came home with a painful tail, he was very sad and didn’t want to interact with his owners like he normally would, which prompted a visit to our Sunday morning clinic in Shepton. He was checked over but aside from a painful tail, nothing more was found, so he was prescribed some pain relief to make him more comfortable and was under close observation at home by his owners. When his signs hadn’t improved much, he was brought back for a recheck, this time he was even more unhappy about his tail being touched and was also experiencing some severe diarrhoea. Milo was admitted into the vets for an examination under anaesthesia and some xrays of his pelvis and tail.

Once Milo was asleep, we were able to assess him much more thoroughly. Even under anaesthetic his rectal temperature was very high, above 40 degrees Celsius and we discovered a large wound along the right side of his tail that was initially completely covered by his coat. We cleaned him up, removing the hair and other bits of debris to reveal a really deep wound around the base of his tail, that exposed the internal structures of his tail, pelvis and rectum. Sadly for Milo, the damage extended further with rupture of the rectal wall meaning the wound was further contaminated by faeces too. The only saving grace was that none of the bones appeared to be broken on the xrays.

Our team of vets and nurses can manage a significant majority of cases, but we must be aware of our limitations and identify cases that require more specialist input. We work collaboratively with specialist veterinary referral hospital when necessary and once the specialist work is done, the patients return to our care so that we can continue to support our patients and clients. The damage to Milo’s rectal wall was really serious and required urgent treatment. Without our super surgeon Martin to help us due to annual leave, the best option for Milo was to travel to a nearby referral hospital for specialist surgical repair and post-operative care.

Rectal surgery is very challenging and not without potential complications including a high risk of the surgical site breaking down, this is due to the fragile nature of the tissue, the forces that go through the fragile tissue when going to the toilet and the naturally high bacterial content of this area of the body. Unsurprisingly Milo’s rectal wound did break down a few days after surgery, which left us with very few options, other than to keep the area clean and hope that it would heal on its own. So, Milo was transferred back to our care and visited us twice a week for a sedation to clean up and flush the wound, whilst we waited to see if his own body could repair itself sufficiently. Remarkably, within three weeks the hole in the skin had closed over and within four weeks Milo was off all medication without any issues going to the toilet. A cat’s ability to heal, especially a young cat, will never fail to amaze me, within weeks, Milo’s tail looked like nothing had ever happened.