Franklin is an 18 month old cat owned by one of our lovely nurses, Steph. She was observant enough to notice that Franklin seemed to have a large lump in his abdomen that could be felt when rubbing his belly. Dr Tim examined Franklin and confirmed that there was definitely something odd going on in his abdomen. Franklin had no clinical signs of concern and no history of vomiting, so further investigation was needed.
Xrays showed that Franklin had an enlarged stomach filled with something looking like worms. Dr Tim questioned Steph further and discovered that she was noticing her hair ties vanishing and getting ‘lost’ regularly. Elastic hair ties are a great plaything for cats, but once they start chewing on them they can be easily swallowed. Some cats have a knack for eating ridiculous things and hair ties are a known foreign body concern in cats.
We proactively performed an exploratory laparotomy (or exlap) to investigate the stomach and ended up removing twelve and a half hair ties!
Franklin recovered really well from surgery and has so far not had further issues.