
29/01/2025
The most horrible thing happened.
Yesterday we lost Mihos…
After what initially appeared to be a perfect surgery a complication arose.
The splint and rib reforming went exactly as hoped pulling into place like it should.
Unfortunately for some reason Mihos’s lungs refused to inflate, 4 of the six lobes stayed deflated, a gas pocket formed in the cavity where the extra space was made making it impossible to inflate just like a collapsed lung.
The specialist didn’t waste any time and managed to remove the gas but still the lungs wouldn’t inflate.
After trying everything he could he even tried removing the splint to try returning everything the way it was, still nothing.
At this point little Mihos had been at a very low blood oxygen level for a long time and while they managed to stabilise his heart he wouldn’t breathe on his own.
Worried that Mihos had suffered brain damage from the low oxygen he was given one last chance to breathe again and the machine breathing for him was turned off sure enough he fought hard and began to breathe.
When previous checks for response of pupils and other senses failed now there was a slight chance with Mihos showing signs he wasn’t brain damaged.
Unfortunately with only 30% lung capacity he didn’t have enough oxygen levels to keep him going and his heart finally gave up.
He fought so hard and if he just had a little more lung expand I wouldn’t have to write such a horrible update. A week ago we went through a similar tragedy in ICU with one of our other cats.
To us they aren’t just numbers or rescues even if it’s for weeks or years we still love them and will fight for them to have a chance.
The emotional and financial toll this takes on us is something we accept from the moment we take them on knowing one day they will rip our heart out.We only knew Mihos a short time but it has still devastated us.
He deserved a chance at life and we will always try where we can. The specialist was quite certain he unlikely would live much longer without surgery as he was becoming more oxygen dependant (supplemented) every day. He was the most severe case he had seen and was very pleased with the surgery and how well it went but was noticeably upset that it failed.
We have had many bad experiences at vets so to see one that truly cares is almost foreign to us.
There are many people who think the extent we will try for a cat is stupidity but to us they aren’t just pets or toys.
You wouldn’t euthanise your child because he has this condition you would find a surgeon.
We go to this extreme because we have seen that more often than not when an animal wants to fight for life the chance they can have that life is there if you fight with them.
Giving up on them because it’s easier or because some suffering to get through an operation is too hard for the human to watch doesn’t change that when an animal wants to fight to stay alive they ACTUALLY want to live.
We have given this chance to as many cats as we can and they are living perfectly normal lives annoying us at every turn 🙂
Every time we try we give it our all and we wish the rest of the world would too.
Little Mihos cut us to the bone but his chance was there and we took it.
He got love and a possible new start when most would simply let him die on a cold table at a vet because it’s too hard to try.
He got to play in his oxygen tank when he never would have.
Even if we can give such small luxuries for such a short time we will.
We loved him
Thank you everyone who has supported this and although it didn’t reach its target and hasn’t covered the vet costs every bit helps and it helps us be closer to helping the next cat just from the generosity you have all shown.
Thank you from US and from Mihos.
Once we have the full records of what happened we will update again so anyone going through the same thing can use it as reference
We will be posting more on our rescue page on TikTok about our cats