Elastic ponytail holders.
Twenty. Eight. Elastic. Ponytail. Holders.
A big stupid Lab? Sure, I’m almost surprised when I’m presented with a young vomiting Lab and he *hasn’t* eaten something foolish. But a cat? Oh come ON now! Cats are supposed to be smarter than that.

The surgery was done Friday the 4th. The cat was still feeling fine, fully normal appetite, pissy as hell and her stomach was PACKED FULL. The stomach was HARD! How this cat was still able to process food, let alone why she was still hungry with a stomach that was fuller than full……{shaking head}

So y’all have been warned.

Seriously, look away if you’re squeamish.

Okay, you asked for it.

The stomach has been isolated and exteriorized from the abdominal cavity.

The cat’s head is to your right. A normal stomach, that is to say, a stomach that isn’t packed full of elastic, is usually flat at this stage of the game.

A small incision is made in the stomach wall. The incision has to be large enough to allow delivery of the object(s) without tearing the tissue.

In this case the incision was made and the hair elastics started popping out. There was that much tension inside the stomach.

The whatsis is removed — ideally intact, but piecemeal if necessary — from the stomach.

And removed……

And removed.

At which point you poke around inside the stomach to be sure you’ve gotten everything, poke around in the rest of the intestine to be sure you’ve gotten everything, and then get the hell out.

I wasn’t there on Friday and I didn’t get to do the surgery (a shame, really, I really rather enjoy a good gastrointestinal foreign body), but my understanding from our new doctor was that the cat was such a pisser postop that they didn’t even send her to the local 24 hour hospital for overnight care. Too fractious, doing too well to need overnight care.

Cats never fail to astonish me.