Stallion's Legacy

Upon intake, we realized that Stallion had an obvious lump on the side of his abdomen. At first, we believed this to be a cyst and so we scheduled an appointment for our veterinarian to take a look at it.

When we arrived at the vet clinic our veterinarian, Dr. Z, also thought this was a cyst and so she grabbed all of the necessary supplies to do a Fine Needle Aspirate (FNA) from this lump. Stallion was placed in lateral recumbency (on his side), but as Dr. Z was about to poke the lump, she quickly realized that this wasn't a cyst. The lump began to sink down and upon examination she diagnosed him with a hole in his abdominal wall, causing his kidney to poke out. You see, Stallion was born with this hernia. However, the location of his hernia was not in a common location.

Knowing what the future entailed for Stallion, our veterinarian recommended euthanasia since he probably wouldn't have a good outcome with where his hernia was located and there was a possibility that Stallion's hernia could twist, cutting off blood supply and essentially killing him. We were at a loss on what to do, but with Stallion only being 6 weeks old at the time, we felt that Stallion deserved a chance at life.

The next several months were filled with adventure, love, and laughter. Stallion was adventurous and at times, rambunctious. He loved playing with other cats and knew how famous he was as everyone who met him or heard his story, fell in love with him.

After consulting with our vet, she had agreed to perform surgery on Stallion's hernia once he got a bit bigger. She made us aware that this wouldn't be an easy surgery to perform and that it would be very risky, but she was willing to give it a try. Once Stallion hit 8 months of age, we had him scheduled to have his hernia repaired and to get neutered. Being in my externship of college for vet tech at the time, Dr. Z allowed me to be present for his surgery.

Sadly, things took a turn for the worst once Stallion went under anesthesia for his surgery....

First, Dr. Z went in through Stallion’s abdomen like you would for a spay surgery. She immediately saw the hole that was causing Stallion’s issues, and it was HUGE. Not only was his kidney being pushed through that hole, but other organs were also being pushed through as well. Additionally, she also found a dime sized hernia too.

Upon examination of his abdomen, we also noticed that Stallion had polycystic kidneys which was not normal. Sadly, our vet was not able to close up the hole through his abdomen and so she closed him back up. She then made an incision on the side of his abdomen where the lump was normally visible. She wanted to try and close the hole up by connecting it to muscle but when she made the incision, we found out that Stallion did not have muscle which was also not normal.

She continued making her incision and was able to suture the hole closed and began closing up the incision. As she was closing the incision, Stallion’s tongue began turning purple and blood started coming out of his mouth. Dr. Z believed that Stallion may very well have a Diaphragmatic hernia and that when she pushed the organs back into the hole, it caused some of those organs to push on his chest. We rushed him back to X-Ray and that is when we saw all of the fluid in stallion’s chest.

We then took him back into the surgery suite and we ended up pulling 40mL’s + from his chest. The fluid was a combination of blood and a foam-like substance. Dr. Z then thought that he may have FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. So, we did bloodwork on him. Thankfully, the bloodwork came back somewhat normal and didn’t give us an indication on if he did have FIP or not.



After pulling all of that fluid off pf his chest, we then noticed his stomach was getting larger and larger. Now we believed he had some internal bleeding somewhere. So, Dr. Z went back into his abdomen a second time to see if she could see any blood. When she opened him back up, she did see the blood, but then found a more serious problem. Stallion had ANOTHER hole.

The reason why his belly was getting larger was because the endotracheal tube was bypassing his lungs and going straight into his abdomen.  We truly thought that Stallion was not going to make it through surgery. He also was supposed to get neutered, but because of the extent of the surgery we ended up not doing his neuter at that time as we didn’t know if he even was going to live. After the surgery was over, we wanted to see how he would recover and if he didn’t recover well, we would have to make the very difficult decision to humanely euthanize him.

During recovery, he began turning purple again and his breathing was very shallow. We immediately gave him Lasix to help get the fluid off of his chest. After he received the Lasix, his color started to come back to normal and he began waking up. As you can imagine, Stallion was in an extreme amount of pain. Because of this, Stallion ended up staying the night with our vet in case things went wrong with his recovery. By some miracle, Stallion survived and beat all odds when they were so stacked against him. Not only was the entire rescue team shocked by this, but our veterinary team was also astonished by this. However, Stallion was not out of the woods yet.

The following day, I went and picked Stallion up and brought him back to my home for his recovery period. Once he got to my home, he acted like nothing was wrong with him. He was the true definition of a fighter. He showed me what it was like to never give up, even when things seem to be going wrong. I know that may sound silly to some, but I truly felt this way about Stallion as he was so special to me.

Unfortunately, after a month went by, Stallion began to decline. Fluid began to fill in his chest again and it was getting harder for him to breathe. I then rushed him to our vet and that is when we determined that the best thing for Stallion was to let him go to the rainbow bridge. To say that this decision was extremely difficult was an understatement. I wanted so badly for Stallion to recover and be able to live a normal, healthy life.

Tears began flowing down my face and I couldn't stop crying. As you can imagine, I have been involved with other euthanasia's and every time I would go home and just break down and cry, but this time was different. As I began to cry, our veterinarian also began to cry. She, too, wanted to Stallion to beat all odds and have a great life as that was what was ahead of him. One thing that our veterinarian told me was, "you will experience a lot of heartbreak in this field" and she is exactly right.

After Stallion's passing, we began taking in more cats with hernias that we truly believe were sent to us by Stallion. It was such a coincidence that more cats with hernias came into our lives and into the rescue after he passed. Although Stallion's story didn't end on a happy note, the cats we have been able to help after he passed away have been able to live a happy, fulfilling life.



There's not a day that goes by that I do not think of Stallion and his fight to live. We hope to continue to save more cats just like Stallion and continue to keep his legacy alive.

May he rest in peace.