Recovery Underway

God has been gracious to me, as always, and my little friend Marvin has come home from the hospital. He is in the piano room eating peanuts and french fries.

I did a lot of research while he was away. The vets could not figure out what the problem was. Offgassing from Teflon pans? Atherosclerosis? Nothing really fit.

He had a huge battery of tests. Everything but a CAT scan, and they still want to give him one in a couple of weeks. They didn’t find out what was making him ill, but we got a ton of good news, because all the tests looked great.

At some point in the process, I decided to look at bifenthrin, a “safe” pesticide I use in the house. It’s a synthetic pyrethroid. I believe the first pyrethroid was pyrethrum, a natural pesticide found in chrystanthemum blossoms. Google and correct me.

Bifenthrin is supposedly safe for pets and people, it kills a wide variety of tough bugs, and it has a residual effect that lasts for weeks or months. Sounds great. But some sources say it’s not all that safe. For example, if you spill it on your skin, it can cause numbness, which is a clear sign that it’s doing something significant. If you inhale sprayed bifenthrin, it acts as a respiratory irritant. It can cause tremors. It is a suspected human carcinogen. It kills mice and fish.

In birds, it can cause anorexia, lethargy, vomiting, and seizures. Exactly what Marvin had.

On the day Marv took sick, I sprayed a couch with bifenthrin to kill carpet beetles. I have sprayed bifenthrin in the house many times, but ordinarily, I just squirt around the baseboards. When I sprayed the couch, I had to shoot a good deal under each cushion and on the underside of the couch, so a lot evaporated into the air.

Bifenthrin is supposedly completely safe to birds when dry, although that isn’t true if they manage to lick something you’ve sprayed.

I also sprayed an insect growth inhibitor called hydroprene, but I couldn’t find any online source saying it was harmful to birds. The SDS says the inactive ingredient in the can is petroleum distillate, so, more or less, WD-40 or mineral spirits. The SDS says not to inhale it, but I think it means not to huff it. I’ve never heard anyone say it was necessary to be careful around petroleum distillates. Just the usual “well-ventilated area” language.

The remedy for inhalation is to give the victim fresh air and put him in a position that makes for comfortable breathing. It says to get medical help if he has difficulty breathing. If. Nothing about medical help otherwise. The manufacturer clearly is not very worried about the effects of incidental inhalation.

During these past few days, I have dreaded hearing from the animal hospital. I got mad at my wife because she used her phone to call me from across the house at a time when I was afraid the vet would call with bad news. I was very disturbed when I heard it ring. By God’s grace, today’s call from the vet was very encouraging. Marv looked as well as he had the day before when we left the hospital, and that meant he looked miles better than he did when we first took him to the ER. On the first day, I don’t think anyone there was optimistic about his survival. I think they expected the worst.

She was very concerned about Marv, as though he belonged to her. She said it would be great if we could drive up to see him, because he did better when we were around. To me, that showed she had a good attitude. She seemed to feel we were doing her a personal favor when we tried to help Marv. Of course, I was extremely concerned about him and eager to do whatever I could.

We made the trip to Gainesville, and before I saw Marv, I picked up an order of beef tallow fries at Steak ‘n’ Shake. I stole a couple, and they were delicious. Canola should be illegal. Anyway, the plan was to get Marv to eat and drink, and I knew fries were very close to a sure thing.

They brought him out, and he looked much better than he had the day before. There was a big difference. He was alert. The previous day, he started to fall asleep several times during our visit.

He was standing. He reacted to us. He groomed himself and performed parrot behaviors consistent with pleasant excitement.

He started peeling and eating fries. He drank a lot of water. He had to receive fluids intravenously during his stay, so drinking water was a sign of great improvement. To me, he seemed to be at about 75%. The day before, I would have said 40%.

His right leg has been weak since he got sick, but today he balanced on it and ate fries he held with his left foot.

Without prompting, he climbed out of his little travel cage and stood on top. That could never have happened two days ago.

The hospital people did something extremely considerate. They gave him a beautiful platter of goodies. Cheese, mashed potatoes, bird pellets, bird seed, zucchini, blueberries, broken cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers, apples, and oranges. Everything cut in little pieces. I was very touched. Marv, however, only ate fries. Takes after me, I guess.

He talked a lot. He received a lot of petting and poking.

They decided to send him home with us, so now he’s here recovering. We put his cage in the nursery because it’s the only convenient room that can be shut off from the area where the bug-spray couch sits.

He has been shelling and eating his own peanuts. He wouldn’t do that at the hospital. I couldn’t even get him to finish a shelled peanut.

There is no reason to think the bug spray will harm him now, since it has been dry for several days, but the vets recommended keeping him away from the couch, and if I do what they say, I will sleep better. I am considering buying camicide, a pesticide people who raise birds use. Upstairs, bifenthrin should still be fine.

To be honest, I don’t think the vets helped him a lot with their knowledge and skill. I believe the main benefit was getting him hydration and an incubator. It may have helped to get him away from the house and the pesticide fumes, but I think they were long gone by the time he got sick. It looks like God provided the answer through me, not the vets.

I prayed and blessed a lot while Marv was away. I relied on a Bible verse that says those who believe will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. For some reason, I thought Peter said this, but it was Yeshua himself, and he said “shall,” not “may.” And he didn’t say anything about limiting the sick to people.

I thought about the parable of the man who killed another man’s pet lamb. When David heard about it, he said the man deserved to be put to death, and if there had actually been such a man, David, who was a man after God’s own heart, would have had him killed. Clearly, God loves our pets, so there is no reason why he wouldn’t heal them.

From now on, Marv will be getting sun a few times a week. I will try to improve his diet. I’ll hang out with him more.

I don’t know if anyone who reads this blog prayed, but if you did, I truly appreciate it. God alone healed Marvin and brought him home to me.