Hi! I’m Tara, Cat Mom to Yoshi, and I’m here to fill you in about his recent health scare last week. Thank you for taking the time to read our story!

Yoshi is a spirited, smart, goofy, and charismatic boy! He loves everyone he meets and will flop over for a belly rub any chance he gets. When we come home at the end of the day, he immediately tells us all about his day with lots of chatter, chirps and trills. He is a fixture in the Instagram Pet Community and is adored by all of those who “know” him. He is best known for his fabulous fashion and baby blues.

I’ll try to keep the background brief, but detailed. On Wednesday 2/12, I got home around 5pm and Yoshi was waiting at the door to greet me just like always. Around 6pm he vomited. It was a white, frothy type of liquid. He vomited another 4-5 times within a 15-20 minute span. This would normally be about the time that they would eat dinner, but I decided to hold off on that since he had an upset tummy. It was around 8pm when I fed him dinner, which he was interested in and ate almost all of it. He then went off into a quiet corner of the house, and “hid” in one of his cat scratcher houses. At this point, his demeanor was very quiet and he kept to himself and didn’t want to interact with us or Chai at all. That was a pretty good sign that he really wasn’t feeling well. At about 11pm he vomited all his food and continued to do so every 10-15 minutes until 2am the next morning. He refused all treats at this point, including deli turkey. It was around that time that I went and brought out the cat carrier as I was fully prepared to bring him to our vet first thing Thursday morning. They say you know your pet best, and I knew something was not right with him. I stayed up with him almost the whole night, checking on him every hour, and all he did was hide in the carrier.

I was on our vet’s doorstep that morning before they even opened. They admitted him for the day to observe, do bloodwork, X-rays, etc. His bloodwork was perfect and there was nothing obvious on xray aside from a lot of gas. Our vet informed us that there are limitations to what you can see on xray so we still couldn’t rule out a foreign body or an obstruction, but that she was going to treat him symptomatically and send him home. She administered fluids, anti-nausea injection, antibiotic injection, and a vitamin injection. She said he would need to come back if he was not improved by the morning. Once we got home, Yoshi had not perked up and he still was refusing all food. He remained in the carrier for hours after that. He eventually went upstairs and hid under the bed the entire night. This was completely out of character for him.

Fast forward to Friday 2/14 morning and there was no improvement. I spoke to our vet at 7am and she said she didn’t want to waste time and wanted me to take him to the emergency clinic for an ultrasound to rule out a foreign body obstruction. She phoned them and set that up. I headed over there with him and was told the internal medicine doctor was fitting him in in between appointments, but that she’d be with us as soon as possible. A couple of hours later, they took him in for the ultrasound. The vet came out to speak to me and confirmed that Yoshi did indeed have an intestinal obstruction, but that they couldn’t really tell me what it was, just that it would need to be surgically corrected. However, they could not perform the surgery as their surgeon was at a conference the next day and they didn’t have anyone covering for him. Unbelievable, right? So I had to then transfer him to another 24 hour clinic, where he was admitted that afternoon.

After arriving at Guardian Vet Specialists on Friday 2/14 around 1pm, I was met by an ER intake doctor who reviewed Yoshi’s medical records and ultrasound report. She said that the surgeon had looked things over as well and since he was stable, they wanted to try an alternative approach rather than jump right into surgery. They advised admitting him, getting him on IV fluids, and seeing if they couldn’t push that obstruction through the bowel by “flushing it” and get him to pass it on his own. They wanted to leave surgery as the absolute last result and hope for the best. We agreed to this plan and they would re-ultrasound him the next morning to see if there was any movement with the obstruction and go from there. We were hoping for the best, but fully prepared for the worst case scenario, which was emergency surgery.

At about 11am Saturday 2/15, we received a call from the internal medicine doctor who informed us she had just re-ultrasounded Yoshi, and there was zero movement of that obstruction and if anything, it looked a bit worse. They immediately prepped him for surgery. I was then phoned by the surgeon, who introduced himself and walked me through the entire process and confirmed that this surgery was 1000% necessary or we would end up losing him. He explained that once he got in there, he would attempt to manually move the obstruction back into the stomach, as the abdomen is generally more tolerant of big surgery like this. If he was unable to do so, he’d have to open up the intestine and grab it and remove it that way. This would be a more complex procedure. We hung up and he went to work.

At about 4pm, I received the call from Dr. Hart and was told Yoshi was out of surgery and that it was a success! Hallelujah! He said he did very well under anesthesia (which was a big concern for a purebred cat and a lengthy surgery) and that the obstruction was caused by a hairball. Yep, you read that right, a hairball! He wasn’t able to push it into the stomach as he had hoped, but did have to go through the intestine, which were a bit angry looking, but still healthy. Had we waited any longer, part of the intestines would have started to die off and it would have required an even bigger surgery, as an intestinal resection would have been necessary. The plan was to keep him on heavy, heavy pain management for the next 24 hours and as long as he did well overnight, specifically no vomiting and was eating on his own, we could plan to pick him up the following evening. He was a champ and did very well, and by 3am on Sunday, he was interested and eating on his own. We weren’t sure, we would get him back as all we heard from every single staff and doctor there, was how much they loved him! They said he was the best patient, always purring, yep that sounds like our Yosh :)

When I spoke to the attending vet on Sunday 2/16 afternoon, she said she’d be comfortable sending him home as he was doing very well, all things considered. He was even head butting her the whole while she was doing his exam. Dr Hart informed us that with any intestinal surgery, you have to monitor very closely for an intestinal leak, but that he had no reason to suspect Yoshi was more at risk than the next patient. It’s a very serious complication and is a drop everything type of emergency. We were told that this potential is eliminated after 5 days. While this had us a nervous wreck, we opted to take him home. As of yesterday (2/20) we are officially beyond that window, and finally feel like we can breathe a sigh of relief!

While Yoshi is expected to make a full and complete recovery, the next 3 weeks will be a process. Recovery up to this point has been a little slower and a bit more difficult than we anticipated. Since his surgery was a bit more complex, he needs to be kept confined to a dog crate to avoid any running, jumping, stairs, or playing. He’s got the added bonus of being a large breed cat, so the running and jumping are big no-no’s. He has to wear his cone full time as well. He’s been tolerating the whole setup pretty well, but we also have the help of the gabapentin to keep him pain free and sleepy. Since he’s been home, we’ve seen a little improvement each day, and that’s all that we would hope for. Our upmost focus right now is getting our sweet boy better so that he can return to the things he loves doing, and those he loves most- his Instagram friends and family!

Anyone that knows my husband or I, knows we love our animals. We would do absolutely anything for their well-being, and while we wish this weren’t the case, the vet bills have been an extreme financial curveball for us to absorb so unexpectedly. This last week has been financially and emotionally draining, but we are prepared to do whatever we need to, to keep our sweet boy happy and healthy! The total costs of his veterinary care leading up to his life saving surgery and hospitalization at Guardian Vet Specialists. has exceeded $12,000. If anyone is in a position to donate, we would be eternally grateful. If you’re unable to donate, even a simple share would be much appreciated. We are so grateful to the whole Instagram community who have been asking about ways they can support us, and have been lifting us up in prayer and kindness. We definitely couldn’t have gotten through this week without all of you!

With much love and gratitude,

Tara, Jose, Yoshi, Chai, and Cosmo