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Senior Hamster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: New Jersey, US
Posts: 410
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RIP Matrim
I had another hamster death, Charlotte's, a month ago, so when I decided to do her memorial I remembered that I didn't get around to do Matrim's. So I am doing Matrim's first before doing Charlotte's. Charlotte's will be in her own thread. Just a warning, this is long.
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Fall of 2012, I was looking through Craigslist and other places for a hamster to adopt. I've had my two robo girls, Charlotte and Scarlett, together for a year and decided that I wanted another hamster. I started my search around September looking at dwarfs and found two adds about Robos, one for a lone possible female and another for mom, dad, and six baby robos. I was interested in the mom from the family, but I wasn't sure if mom was still with dad and if she could be pregnant again. So I decided not to continue with that and focus on the single female add. This add had problems, they were asking too much for the hamster, would not discount the adoption fee when I asked as I didn't want all the supplies that I didn't need, or let me take the robo without the cage which was too tiny for her anyway. I was forced to give that up as well.
I then moved my search to a Syrian and found a perfect LH male on a Air Force Base at the beginning of October, but it didn't work out as it would of been 3 hours roundtrip without traffic and the previous owners couldn't meet us half way.
I began to lose hope that I could find a hamster to adopt, but then in early November I found an add for four male Robos up for adoption. These four Robos were brothers at about 6 months with no problems with fighting. The previous owner told me that her friend had gotten a female Robo from a pet store and awhile later, the female had babies and that the four boys were from that litter. I picked them up November 16th and when I saw them they looked big compared to my two girls.
After I got them home and into a temp bin cage, I noticed that one of the boys was a runt. I decided to name the runt Matrim and the other three Rand, Marry, and Pippin. Matrim and Rand named after characters from the Wheel of Time series and Marry and Pippin after of course the Lord of the Rings characters. The follow morning, I found that Matrim had gotten a bloody ear as one of his siblings must have been stressed from the move and nipped him. I decided to leave him in with his brothers as I didn't see the need to take him out while he was so happy with his brothers.
The four boys appeared to have been settling down, but then four days after I picked them up and when I was getting ready to move them into their bigger bin cage, I found Matrim had another wound on him, a little worse than the bloody ear which was healing nicely. I decided to separate Matrim from the others for his safety, but it was obvious from the start of the separation that he didn't like it. He was depressed and lonely away from his brothers, but I wanted him to heal first. I began to really handle him as I wanted him to be less lonely and I found out after a few days that he was so tame. It was so nice to have him out and let him run all over me, only to drift off in the crook of my arm.
By the 1st of December, Matrim had been healed for a while but I procrastinated as I wasn't sure how the reintroduction would go. I finally put him back in with his brothers using the split cage method using some parts from a playpen, there was no aggression in any of them. Matrim kept trying to slip through to the other side, while Marry and Pippin seemed to be trying to help him get through the bars. I turned my back for a minute and Matrim was on the other side and was already snuggling with his brothers. All seemed well for my boys and I decided to leave them be for awhile before handing them too much again, expect to check for wounds.
Then the dreaded night of December 17th came. I was cleaning out cages and was worried about Charlotte's health as I did the girls first, but when I opened up the boys' bin cage and picked up Matrim, I discovered Matrim was my top concern. He was terribly thin and had a huge black poo mass stinking to his butt which had some blood in it. I rushed him to the vet, hoping that there was something they could do. During the short 10-15 minutes in the car ride over to the vet hospital which the hamsters' vet is located in, he seemed to have gotten worse.
We only had to wait a couple of minutes for them to get us in a room. They took Matrim from me and a vet tech started asking me his history. I started rambling and jumping back and forth, talking about the month and a day that I've had him. I was trying to be strong and not cry, but I was pacing when the vet tech finally left and I was trembling a little. What was wrong with my cute little runt? If I had looked in on them earlier, would I have caught it sooner? Was there any signs before that day that could have alerted me? What were they doing with Matrim that was taking so long?
Questions like those and more kept running through my head and I had no answers that my brain could supply me with. Finally the vet came in and told me they tried, but he had stopped struggling with them, that he was giving up. She explained that they didn't know what caused what was wrong with him, she told me that he was skin and bones, dehydrated, the black poo stuff was from diarrhea, and he had a swollen tail. She also told me that the best thing to do was put him to sleep and asked if I wanted some time with him to say goodbye. I told her I understood and I wanted to see him.
She brought him out in a towel and I could see the fight was gone with him, he had accepted his fate. I began to stroke him softly and speak kind words to him quietly. He moved to the crook of my arm and rested there for long minutes, the crook of my arm had became a favorite place of his whenever I had him out. Finally the vet came back and said they had to take him to the back to give him the injection that would send him over the bridge. I understood and waited, trembling, but still trying to not break down at the hospital.
The vet finally came back a last time to tell me he has passed. Mom convinced me that I shouldn't take his body home with me, that the ground was too frozen to bury him and such. I agreed, there was no fight in me to argue. We paid the vet bill and got many words of sympathy from the staff and finally we left, leaving Matrim's tiny and probably already cold body there. We got in the car to go home and I started to break down and cry my eyes out. I continued to cry after we got home and I forced myself to clean out the remaining three boys' bin cage so Matrim's scent will be washed away.
It hurt for a long time, Matrim was the first pet that was truly mine that I lost. I didn't know how painful losing a pet you only had and knew for a month could be go painful, but it was. But his death still hurts me to think about and I tear up every time I think of him. Like right now, it's been nearly 6 full months since his passing and I'm tearing up writing this.
The vet staff, however, never could pronounce his name right no matter how many times I told them. They kept calling him May-Trim while the correct way to say it is Mat-Rim.
Nearly a week later, I got a sympathy card from the vet hospital with a hand written note from the vet who saw Matrim. It was really touching and the card had small animals on it too. A few days to another week later, I got a letter from the Seeing Eye Dog group and I thought it was just them asking for money. Good then I opened it for I discovered the vet hospital had donated to them in memory of Matrim! About 4-5 months later I got something from St. Huberts, which is the biggest pet shelter nearby and has recently started doing more small pet rescues. Again, I thought it was them asking for money or something and again I was so glad I opened it. The vet hospital had donated to the shelter in Matrim's memory too! We figured it just took the shelter so long to get the card out because they get a ton of donations in memory of pets.
That vet hospital is amazing and I'm always so glad that I took Matrim to them, even though they couldn't save him.
I hope you are safe over at the bridge and helped Charlotte when it was her time to leave for the bridge. I will always remember you, Matrim. Rest in peace.
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Currently hamster-less, but still have my 'wanna-be hamster' cat named Zim.
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