Charlie’s urgent lack of urgency

By John Morgan | Dated September 13, 2022

It’s almost too unpleasant to think about, however please indulge us and imagine needing to pee, but not being able to go. No amount of imagining flowing waterfalls or running streams can help. This is the very unpleasant and life-threatening situation that Charlie found himself in recently.

Charlie’s bladder was full, but despite his best efforts, his litter tray remained dry

Charlie’s owner had just arrived home and found him sitting uncomfortably, yowling and showing no interest in food. She brought him straight in to see us, and as his owner had suspected, he had a blocked urethra. Poor Charlie’s urethra had closed over and he was physically unable to pass urine, so his bladder was getting bigger and bigger, and more and more uncomfortable.

We immediately gave him pain relief, ran a blood test to check his kidneys and electrolytes were ok, and anaesthetized him. He was a tricky kitty to unblock and we had to use all the tricks in the book, however we finally managed to pass a tiny urinary catheter along his urethra to empty his bladder.  Charlie woke up from his anaesthetic in a very happy and no doubt relieved state of mind, with a drip into his front leg giving him IV fluids and electrolytes, plus a tube and bag collecting the urine draining out through his urinary catheter. He was such a smoochy cat in hospital, however he did let his feelings be known about the number of tubes coming from him, by doing his very best to tangle them at every opportunity!

A sterile urinary catheter was placed to allow Charlie to urinate while in hospital

Two days after his blockage was relieved, Charlie went home on a couple of painkiller medications and on several medicines to relax his muscles, to ensure that he is able to pee when he needs to, without it blocking up again.