Marcus is gone....

[poltr1]

I lost my cat Marcus this morning.

The past few days, it appeared that he hadn't been eating or drinking. And he was yowling at me. On Monday evening, I noticed some dark spots on his forehead, and behine the ears. I looked closer and it turned out he had fleas. I thought about taking him to the emergency vet, but thought it would rather expensive to do so. A good friend had suggested I get some Revolution. But when I wernt to two of the local pet stores, they never heard of it. (I checked online and it's prescription-only.) So I went home with six vials of Sentry Purrscriptions Plus squeeze-on treatment. I applied one vial to Marcus between his shoulder blades, per the instructions. This morning, he was laying on his side, with his mouth hanging open. By thye time I got showered and dressed to take him to the emergency vet, he was already gone.

I've already taken his body to a local pet cemetery, where he'll be cremated. And I'll pick up his cremains soon.

I can't conclusively prove that the anti-flea medication was the direct cause of death, but it's certainly a factor. And checking online, it appears that other owners have had similar complaints about the product. So I can't and won't recommend it to anyone.

And with the mild winter we had, I expect this to be a "bad" season for fleas, and lots of flea infestations. I'm not going to replace him until I get the whole house taken care of.

I need to put together a list of Marcus stories. He lived to be 13 years old, or close enough to 13. I was hoping he'd make it to 15, or even 20 years. But I gave him 13 years of a good life.

And still, there's a part of me that's kicking myself, wondering where I screwed up, what I missed, or failed to do.

I'm gonna miss him. I miss him already. And I has a sad.

Here's a picture of him: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2658240380105313029xOYwQH

Comments

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry. My ocndolences.

[rms-butterfly.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm so sorry for your loss.

[hms42]

Sorry to hear the sad news about your cat.

[billroper]

I'm sorry.

[daisy-knotwise.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry.

GHR

[katyhh.livejournal.com]

I am very sorry to read this, this is horrible.
Yeah, googling that product gives me all sorts of bad experience info - it, indeed, seems like it is poisonous and a lot of cats react badly to it. How can such a product still be on the market ... outrageous.

[patoadam]

Oh Jim, I'm so sorry.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

This is terrible. I'm so sorry. I am not very well informed on this stuff, but my understanding is that these systemic flea products are in general pretty safe as long as they're in the correct dosage, and that a dog product isn't given to cats. If you had the correct product and used it according to the directions, something is wrong with the product and you should have recourse. But even if you were wronged, getting a corporation to acknowledge that they were at fault is probably tilting at a windmill.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry. Our cat Jenna died a while back just as we thought she was getting better from a mysterious illness - I got up one morning and found her dead in the computer room. The hardest part, for me, was thinking of her dying while we were asleep and clueless. Sometimes even with everything you can do, it happens, and it's awful but the best you can do is focus on the 13 years. Cliche, I know, but...

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[cigfran-cg.livejournal.com]

Oh. Losing a fur-kid is so hard. Sympathies.

[infobits.livejournal.com]

May your good memories lighten grief.
{{hugs}}