Jahar: plicated small intestines...

Jahar: plicated small intestines, caused by ingesting a piece of ribbon.  That's not him at right, but rather a photo I found searching on the web.  “Plicated” is from the Latin “to fold”, which you can see is exactly what the small intestines do as they scrunch up around the foreign body.  In the veterinary world, they call this a “linear foreign body”, and it's a common problem with pets.  The veterinary surgeon explained to us that the plication is what happens when friction keeps the foreign body from moving through the bowels, but the intestines keep trying to move it.

Untreated, this is likely fatal – the intestines will eventually be cut through by the foreign body.  Fortunately the treatment is a fairly routine surgery, though it sounds complicated to me.  Basically the surgeon makes several small cuts through the wall of the small intestines, cuts the foreign body (a ribbon, in Jahar's case) into pieces, then extracts them through the same cuts.  Then cuts are sutured, the cat put back together (some combination of staples, sutures, and glue), and then a few days for recovery.  The biggest risk is for infection, caused by the bacteria in any liquid from the bowels that “leaks”, especially if a suture should fail.

Jahar's scheduled for surgery in a few hours, and by early this evening we should know how he did.  The surgeon is Dr. Jackson, at VCA in Kearney Mesa.  These are the same folks who so successfully treated Halala for cancer; we know them, like them, and trust them.  Jahar's in good hands.  Now we just wait...