BRANSON, Mo. – A Cox Medical Center Shockwave Lithotripsy Specialist uses a machine that blasts kidney, ureter and bladder stones away on a non-human patient, a serval cat.

According to a post from the Cox Medical Center Branson Facebook page, Don Wilson has been a part of the urology program with CoxHealth for more than two decades. He is an expert on a shockwave lithotripsy machine that sends 40,000 volts of energy through water to show the stone into sand-sized pieces, which allows the patients to pass through urine.

The post said two weeks ago, a serval cat at the Little Rock Zoo was suffering from a large kidney stone that was nearly crippling the animal. Vets at the zoo contacted the urology team at the University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock to see if they could help. They currently use lasers to blast stones, a procedure that requires scopes to be inserted. They didn’t have any luck getting access.

This is when Wilson got the call.

“The animal hospital asked me how much I would charge to help,” Wilson said. “I told them you paid me simply by calling because this is on my bucket list!”

During to operation, they discovered the cat’s fur was too long and thick to allow the machine to touch the skin.

“After the cat was asleep, I had to sheer a softball size patch of hair because it was blocking my bellows from getting close enough to the skin to send the shockwaves,” said Wilson.

CoxHealth’s post stated the operation took forty-five minutes and they managed to blast the 1.6-centimeter stone into dust.

“I told them I really wanted to hold that kitty while he was asleep,” Wilson said. “After he woke up, the stone was completely gone and he was as good as new!”