he came in back in march of 2011 with one of the worst mouths we have ever seen. his previous owner had been treating him homeopathically and refusing to remove all of his teeth because she thought it was mean. by the time he came to us, he was so emotionally damaged from long term unbearable pain, that he would not leave his bed, not even to pee, he would not walk at all unless we made him and he could not eat without screaming. we spent the next 2 years healing him. he had a full mouth extraction of all of his teeth..he had months and months of pain meds, antibiotics, steroids, anti-inflammatories, cartrophen injections, and hand feeding. his last painful mouth flare up was in march of 2013, and until last week he was almost 18 months fully pain free and our healed marvin was able to walk up to a food bowl when ever he wanted and painlessly eat.
last week marvin hit his bed again, we took him to the vet thinking his mouth had flared up again. but his mouth looked great, it was only an ear infection and we were thankful for this. he has been having his ear meds twice a day for 5 days but marvin was not bouncing back and getting out of bed. I thought he was reverting to his post traumatic stress behaviors because marvin was terrified of being in pain or sick so I wasn't too worried. I thought once his ear settled down, he would get back up and start moving.
Dionne phoned me just as I was leaving work..marvin had not eaten today, he had a choking/coughing fit this afternoon and now his breathing was labored. when I got home, I checked him. he was dehydrated and his breathing was rapid..i thought about making him wait to see the vet until tomorrow, but my gut said he should see someone sooner. I packed him up and took him over to emerg and the xray showed a plueral effusion, lungs full of metastatic tumours and the vet guessed the primary source was most likely lymphoma.
marvin passed peacefully away in my arms. he was 8 years old.
rest in peace marvin, you were a very brave yet gentle cat.
I saw Marvin when I went on a SAINTS tour and fell in love with him! I sponsored him the last few months and am so sad to hear of his passing. But I am glad he spent the last 18 months healing and relatively pain-free. Sorry to hear about his loss - much love!