We know how everyone loves to hear
about Mr. A and Mr. B, so we thought we would share with you something about
what's been going on with Mr. A, lately. We had been monitoring some weight
loss over the past few weeks. Then we started noticing that he was acting
aggressive towards Mr. B. Suddenly, about three weeks ago, we noticed that his
urine started smelling strangely like an un-neutered male cat's urine (if you
have never smelled it, un-neutered male cat urine smells very distinct: VERY
strong and stinky), and he started urinating inappropriately. We were concerned
that he had circulating testosterone in his system, which a neutered cat should
not have. This led us to believe that he had something wrong with his adrenal
gland.
We took some x-rays and drew some
blood, and then looked at his penis under anesthesia. Why would we do that? You
may not know this but un-neutered male cats have tiny barbs on their penises,
kind of like the barbs they have on their tongues. These barbs disappear when a
cat is neutered (or never develop, if they are neutered before maturity). Sure
enough, Mr. A had developed barbs on his penis. Since his neuter surgery was
uncomplicated and straightforward, we knew that he should not have testosterone
in his system to produce these symptoms, this suggested even more strongly that
he had a malfunctioning adrenal gland. His testosterone test results were the
same as an intact male cat's. We then performed an abdominal ultrasound and
found a small mass near his kidney that should not have been there.
A week ago, we scheduled him for
surgery. During the procedure, we found evidence of recent bleeding or
hemorrhage in the retroperitoneal space (a pocket around the kidney and adrenal
gland). The bleeding became active during the surgery, and to control the hemorrhage,
we performed a blood transfusion and removed the kidney that was associated
with the affected adrenal gland. This was done to remove all of the abnormal
vessels and adrenal tissue associated with the mass. It appeared that Dr. Bailey
was able to remove the entire mass. Now that Mr. A has had a transfusion, he
has sadly been removed from the blood donor list because his blood has been
sensitized to blood proteins from another cat. This means that his blood is likely
to destroy the red cells of a blood recipient.
The pathologist at our reference lab
examined the mass for us and reported an unusual result. He could not see any
evidence of tumor, but reported that the mass displayed signs of infarction –
dead tissue due to a loss of blood supply. This infarct may have destroyed any
sign of a tumor, or there may be a problem elsewhere in the body. Certainly, we
don’t know at this point what caused the infarct, which means the outlook on
his health is unknown. Right now, he is doing well, and recovering. Our staff
is impatiently waiting while the pathologist takes a closer look at his biopsy
samples in the hopes that he can give us more information.
