Olsen's Story

OLSEN AND HIS CUT

"OLSEN" was one of those guys who, after hanging about for a few weeks with apparently no owner, ,just turned up at the door one day for feeding. Unfortunately for him his previous owners, who were misssing in action, had left a collar on him that he had managed to get one of his front legs through.

He had manged to get the collar off but it had left a long, deep cut in his armppit. His adopted owners presented him to us with this large gash and we proceded to suture it close and place him on antibiotics. We knew this wound in fact was long-standing and hoped that suturing and antibiotics would be sufficient to see him home.

However over the ensuing weeks this wound failed to heal. It was resutured twice and after a month on antibiotics it still refused to heal. In cats, this is a known complication of these types of injury. Movement of the leg and dead space in the armpit area prevent healing and infection persists.

In the end we had to do what is known as an "omental graft". The omentum is a specialised piece of gut ligament with an extensive blood supply, that floats over the intestines like a lacey sheet. We went into Olsen's abdomen and unravelled this sheet. We then created a subcutaneous tunnel under the skin and carried an unravelled section of this omentum through that tunnel. The tunnnel extended from the abdomen, went under the skin of the chest and travelled up into armpit.

Here it was tacked into the deadspace of the armpit where it provided a lovely blood supply[all the way from the abdomen] and filled up the dead space that had been preventing healing.

After 2 months with this dreadful wound, Olsen finally achieved healing and went on to become the wonderful, adopted cat with the engaging, confident personality that we came to know and love.

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