Which surgery? Please help - male cat

[ohwailywaily]

Hello, this is my first post. I have two cats (and a DH). Earlier in week (Weds) noticed one cat was not acting right, trying to go to loo but couldn't etc. and so Thursday early morning took him to emergency vets where they said his bladder was blocked. They unblocked him, cat was fine, recovering well, but wanted to keep him overnight of course. They said he had a small stone which could probably be dissolved with food once he's back home with us.

Next day his blood test showed a slight rise in creatine, so they wanted to keep him in the next night too (Friday night), fine. He was peeing ok (had removed catheter). But yesterday, noticed he was showing symptoms of being blocked again and so they had to put the catheter back in and keep him overnight.

Today we've heard he has two stones, not one, and they are small - one was in his urethra and one was in his bladder, they are both in his bladder now. Vet talked about two surgeries:

a) bladder (to remove the stones) - seems like a more minor procedure (??) but won't stop him getting blocked again

b) penis (to widen the urethral orifice) - seems like more major surgery (recovery will require cone of doom which he hates) but if he gets stones again he should definitely be able to pass them, however, higher risk of recurring UTIs.

They can't operate until tomorrow, so we have time to make a decision, but honestly don't know what is best?

I'm very upset at the thought of him being in pain and I miss his fluffy face very badly. He's around 11 years old.

Obviously, once he's home we will do whatever we can to help him recover and prevent stones from forming again.

Please could anyone who's been through either surgery before please help us decide!

Thank you.

Hey @wheresmymojo, Alfie is doing ok now. At which stage is your boy at? Did he have surgery? As others have said, it's really stressful at the time but will work out in the end.

As per my last post, it was stressful trying to stop him from jumping and going upstairs, by the seventh day he was pretty glum, but the vet gave him the all-clear last week (he had been home for six days). Said his surgery wound had healed nicely and that he had a mild urine infection but he was on antibiotics anyway. We are going back to the vets for another post-op checkup tomorrow. He's got one more dose of a painkiller left but from tomorrow we'll hopefully stop all meds.

He is pretty much back to his normal self - so nice hearing his little chirrups - if slightly less affectionate/a bit wary, however yesterday he did sit on my lap and feel asleep hugging my thigh which was lovely - usually, he sits on one of us at least once every day. He seems really ridiculously hungry - I don't know if he's addicted to the new wet food (Hills urinary care c/d) we've put him on, while we wait for the results of the stone analysis, or is just feeling like he needs more energy. When he was immediately recovering from the surgery we indulged him and fed him whenever he wanted, this has obviously backfired with us being woken up every night to feed him. (DH and I have not had a full night's sleep for weeks.)

There is definitely a territorial / re-settling thing going on with him and Solomon at the moment, Alfie is reclaiming spots around the house and obvs Solomon got used to being the only cat around, so there is some tension and we are doing everything we can to keep them from fighting because we don't want either of them to get stressed. They haven't fought at all and no hissing or scratching etc. but there have been some stand-offs.

Sorry I'm rambling now, need bed!

Forgot to say - he is peeing fine but a few small clumps a day rather than one or two big clumps in the litter, and it took him a good few days to poop properly - had to give him a bit of a laxative to get him going and his first was the biggest poop I've ever seen from a cat, but since then he's been pooping normally. Also, he won't drink from his old plastic fountain or the new steel one, just a ceramic bowl - he's drinking less full stop but now it's like he doesn't want to eat/drink anything unless it's in a ceramic dish. Going to check all this out with the vet tomorrow.