Sushi

At the vet...again

We've had a rough day with Sushi. Yesterday afternoon we got home at 6 and she was playing and acting completely normal. But at 8:30 I found her laying in an odd position in their cage, looking like someone had just tossed her there. I picked her up, she took a single step and fell over. Her body and tail were cold, her eyes were glazed over and covered in mucus, and she was completely limp. Her breathing was clear but she was motionless - even her whiskers were still.

Dave made up a mixture of water, sugar, and salt and she was willing to eat a bit of that through a syringe. She spent the evening mostly laying quietly, eyes open and staring. Periodically she would get up, take a few steps, and then fall over. I wasn't sure she would survive the night, but when I got up around 3 a.m. she staggered to the front of the cage to see me and willingly took about .8cc of the water/sugar/salt mixture.

We took her to the vet first thing this morning. She's down to 270 grams (she was 298 grams last week). The vet initially thought she had some sort of blockage, but xrays revealed that everything in her abdomen looked okay, except for a very full cecum.  The vet couldn't find any other obvious signs of what is going on - her downturn was so sudden and serious that he thinks something must have caused it. This isn't just a slow decline from not eating. He didn't think this was related to the upper respiratory infection we've been dealing with, although the prednisone could cause her stomach to be upset and thus make her eat/drink less. 

Right now though, the issue is her dehydration. She is very weak and we need to get fluids and food into her. The vet gave her fluids under her skin while we were there, and sent us home with instructions to continue doing this twice a day for the next 7 days. She also gets a laxative twice a day, along with special liquid food. Hopefully once her cecum is cleaned out she'll feel better and the fluids should help with the lethargy and weakness. I'm not sure if the real issue will become evident at some point, or if the only issue is her dehydration.

The next 24 hours are critical, and the vet wouldn't say what he thought her prognosis was.  She was willing to eat some of the liquid food a couple of hours after her fluids this morning and she was walking around slowly, so I am hopeful. I am not looking forward to injecting the fluids twice a day - she put up quite a fight for the vet when he did it this morning, which was amazing considering how weak she is. They could hospitalize her for a few days and take care of it there, but if we're able to handle it at home, she'll probably do better in her own environment with Saké to keep her company.

So, think positive thoughts for a very tiny, beloved rat.