Sutton’s Story
 Sutton is named after the town “Sutton”, Quebec, where as a stray kitten, he came out of the woods, joined everyone around the campfire and slept that night in Dave’s sweatshirt hood. Dave took him home back to Montreal. A week later, Sutton was in an accident. Dave, faced with euthanasia or amputation of Sutton’s back leg, chose amputation. This accident did cause brain trauma – Sutton has been epileptic since, on and off, with at times over a year seizure free. Sutton’s epilepsy “has been a source of pain, confusion and heartache”, writes Lori, “however it has been manageable and – for the most part – has not affected his quality of life.”
Sutton travelled with Dave and Lori across Canada, living in Montreal, Halifax and eventually Vancouver, where I met him in August 2007. For those of you who have met Sutton, you know your first reaction is love.
 In the first week of June 2009, Sutton experienced a cluster of seizures, culminating in a 5 day event, during which he did not urinate. He lost a lot of brain function from this event, including basic survival traits like being able to pee. When it became apparent that he was not going to urinate on his own, that this was brain damage and not just bladder dysnergia, we contemplated major surgery to help him keep his bladder empty – by this time he had already had 2 surgeries for urethral catheter placement, with associated hospital stays. Lori and Dave faced a terrible decision, they were moving back east; on 3 July 2009, with grace and love they left Sutton with me at VFH.
Thomas and I would use ultrasound-guided cystocentesis to empty Sutton’s bladder every day. He was still not himself – he didn’t recognize his name, was non-responsive to his surroundings, didn’t move out of the sun if he became too hot, needed a lot of attention and nursing. We learnt a few of his seizure triggers, and he travelled with us if we had to go away. Each day, though, a little more of the cat that was Sutton came back. His brain was repairing itself.
We didn’t know how long, if ever, it would take for him to learn to urinate again.  There is a palliative procedure in which an indwelling device is placed in the urinary bladder, out to the abdominal wall, to allow regular emptying of the bladder – it bypasses the urethra – in patients that cannot urinate for whatever reason. The Cystotomy device itself cost over $400. The Cystotomy device is held in the bladder by a saline filled balloon, and a separate part of it is stitched to the skin, holding the bladder against the abdominal wall. A cute little valve allows one to empty the bladder at a port in the skin. I did the surgery 17 July 2009. The surgery and recovery went well, and we were elated. Sutton was a trooper, eating and  purring within an hour of recovery.
The next morning I dashed in to use the Cystotomy tube and remove his urethral catheter – and found the device on the blanket in his kennel. There had been a pinhole leak in the balloon, and it had popped out as the balloon deflated.
There was a little urine leakage around the surgery site, but his bladder had sealed itself overnight, and so at least I was not dealing with a uroabdomen complication, just urine scald at the skin and subcutaneous fat level. This did delay healing – it took a while before the scar was properly healed, not helped by his attention to food – at one point Joe looked at Sutton lying on his back in the sun, and said “Sutton’s popping at the seam!”
So back we were, every day, once or twice a day, using the ultrasound to place a needle into his bladder, and with a sterile collection system, completely emptying it. At about 2/3 empty, he would stop purring, and sneeze, nearly every time. 
Sutton’s first pee by himself happened 8 September 2009. We have not looked back since then. He does get anxious about his litter – it has to be clean and not too deep – because he hates to get his bum dirty, which happens too often with only 1 back leg to balance on whilst in the potty. He does not like to share, and the box has to be very big and low for access. It cannot be enclosed. It took a while for us to get him to use our cat litter – after the second poop on the carpet, I switched him back to the cat litter he had been using with Dave and Lori, and after a consistent month of success, very slowly over 2 months changed the litter to our flushable clumping litter.
Sutton likes to be in the middle of things, so his preference is to sleep in a doorway. He loves grass and gardens. We felt terrible having him at the Hospital, even though everybody adored him as a clinic cat and nobody could step over him without patting him. Eventually I figured out some of his seizure triggers – the traffic lights at night, whistling, vacuum cleaners, and upset cats spending the night. Still, to control him, he was on phenobarb maximum dose every twelve hours, and we had added levetericetam which needs to be given every eight hours. When we moved in June 2010, it took a couple of months, and then I gave up the living room to Sutton’s bed and litterbox, and he moved in to join our home colony. All the other cats were delighted with the new open litterbox, and it is the one most used, which means to prevent Sutton’s anxiety, we scoop about 5 times a day! Our big boy gets medication for his epilepsy 4 times a day – something hard to achieve with our 10 hour work days, but we figured out the way, because routine and exact timing is the key to his seizure control.
In January 2011, Sutton peed and pooped on my bathroom floor, and went through a cluster of seizures. When he didn’t come out of the midazolam-induced coma as expected, I rushed him into the Hospital, placed an IV, and ran bloodwork (it was 3 months since his last blood test). “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for that cat” said Thomas, as I placed the IV, Sutton purring trust in my ear. We discovered we now live with a 3-legged epileptic diabetic. Since controlling his diabetes, Sutton’s epilepsy is much better controlled, and life is settling again. He finds me at 8am and 8pm, chatting away to remind me it is time for his insulin, “o and that big bowl of chicken perhaps?”. As far as he is concerned, getting his pills is just a big hug session, and he could really do with more. The other cats have learned to leap over him in the doorway. Although we  now have to holiday at home, never travel anywhere together, and are committed to medications 4 times a day; Sutton is a cheerful rotund chatterbox with his own indoor garden, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Donations from the estate of Josiane Hamers helped us to save Sutton’s life.
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Cat Tails 
