by a group of local teenagers who found him in the gutter with a couple of his
dead siblings.
We estimated he was about 5 weeks old.
We took him in with the intention of rehoming him.
When we checked him over we observed he had difficulty breathing.
We suspected his diaphragm had ruptured, which was confirmed with an xray.
Generally with this condition we like the body systems to stabalise and adjust
to the condition before we operate.
But the little fellow progressively became worse, so we decided to operate
sooner than later else he would die.
The diaphram is a sheet of muscular tissue which separates the thoracic
contents (lungs and heart) from the abdominal contents (liver stomach
intestines bladder etc).
It can rupture when considerable force is applied to the body and chest,
such as might occur from a motor vehicle accident or other trauma. The resulting tear in the little fellows
diaphragm allowed his abdominal contents to migrate into his thoracic cavity pushing his heart and lungs
to the side.
His lungs had very little room to expand. As a consequent he found it hard to breath and receive enough
oxygen.
The operation involved accessing the tear by opening his abdomen. We needed to
manually inflate and deflate his lungs as the operation was progressing because
with the abdomen open his lungs collapsed therefore he could not breath on his own.
We found his intestines, stomach and liver had all migrated into his thoracic cavity.
No wonder the little fellow could barely get enough oxygen to survive.
We replaced these organs back into his abdominal cavity and sutured the torn edges
together. He took a couple of hours to recover from his surgical ordeal, but the next
day he was a happy, eating, meowing kitten, and purring like a motor.
Weighing in at 620 gramsFirst Meal
