This case report came into my fingers today and I thought it might be interesting for you, too.

Mitzi is a long-term lymphoma survivor. Her last chemotherapy was 5 years ago, but since she vomited, her owners were afraid that the cancer was back and introduced her to a vet. Her stomach felt very strange – dough-like, like there was a lump of bread in it. That’s not how tumors feel, tumors are usually solid. The X-ray showed a mass, but the „material“ in her stomach looked very strange. That’s how they decided on an endoscopy.

So Mitzi was put under anesthesia and the endoscope was inserted. And they discovered… a huge hairball bigger than a fist and it was stuck. One wondered whether the hairball had been in the making for five years or more. Cats don’t lose all their fur during chemo, but they do lose their guard hairs. Mitzi as a long-haired cat probably swallowed quite a lot of hair during the treatment. With the endoscope it was not possible to remove the hairball and Mitzi had to undergo surgery to remove the hairball that was the size of a grapefruit. Mitzi lived for another four years after that and finally died at the age of 17.

The whole story is written in a very entertaining way: Mitzi and the giant hairball