Colon-free Kitty

Matzel is back home, sans a body part. He seems to be doing well, and has attracted the attention of his curious brothers. For a few days, he'll be enclosed in a large dog cage to keep him from moving around too much, because his incision is literally the length of his trunk. I was surprised at the size, until I saw what they took out.

The pictures below are of Matzel in his new abode, and Lemur keeping him company. Wiley was laying on my lap.


As I was paying for his operation, one of the techs came out - a woman who has been working with him for years - and said that she thinks he lost at least 2 pounds (the equivalent of about 30 lbs for humans) just in the size of the colon. Then whispered: "you want to see it??" I had to promise I wouldn't pass out (as if) and lord o' mighty, it was impressive. I guess when you consider the xrays, it's not so surprising. After a initial "holy shit", I said, "this is totally blog-worthy, will I seem really odd if I ask for a picture." She said yes I would, but go for it. So I did.

Sadly, it was hard to photograph. They removed a good 7-8 inches of colon. This thing literally looked like some kind of parasitic alien from a sci-fi movie. Indeed, adding to the geekiness of taking a picture, my first thought was "oh my God, it's a goa'uld!!!" (alien evil doers from Stargate SG-1, for the uniformed ;-) The pictures below don't do it justice.

Here's the original xray, followed by two views of the dead alien/colon: