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.

Sushi's Emergency Vet Visit

Sushi waits for the vet.

We woke up yesterday to Parker incessantly whining while staring at the rat cage. I like to imagine he's Lassie, which is absurd, but the fact is that Sushi was having a really hard time breathing and her gasping noises weren't loud enough to wake us up. Parker's whining was though and we quickly realized what was going on with poor Sushi.

We ended up sticking her in the bathroom with the shower running and the steam helped to improve her breathing temporarily. We then set up a humidifier in the bedroom to make things less dry and called the vet.

I was obviously pretty freaked out but the verdict from the vet wasn't too scary. She has an upper respiratory infection and is now on an antihistamine and antibiotics. The vet thinks we should see improvement pretty quickly but if we don't, she has to go back and have a chest xray. I'm not sure how the logistics of that work.

In good news, she's gained 40 grams since her surgery in October and is now at 298 grams. It looks like her remaining incisors never grew back after they broke off during surgery, which is a relief. Despite the infection, the vet thought her overall health was good.

Hopefully she will be back to being her usual bouncy self soon.

Hamster Power

While I appreciate what they are trying to do with this, I hate it:

You can find a lot more information about the project, including how to build your own (please don't) over at their website.

Don't Blink

Last night the rats and I inadvertently had a scary experience. I needed to clean their cage, so I did the usual routine: kicked the dogs and cats out of the bedroom and put the rats on the bed. Normally they run around and play while I deal with their cage.

However, instead of playing last night, or even running to the trunk at the foot of the bed, where there is always piled up laundry in which to burrow, they ran to the head of the bed, where they promptly climbed behind the pillows. Every once in a while I'd glance over and just see their tiny faces sticking out, eyes wide and staring.

I assumed they were just not in the mood to play and kept cleaning their cage.

Several minutes later, I heard a noise and turned around, expecting to see the rats climbing on the bed frame or doing something else that was noisy. Instead I was shocked to see our dog Annie (first introduced in bentorats.blogspot.com/2011/03/rest-of-crew-pt-1.html) sitting in the corner of the room on her bed. Her bed which is framed on one side by the bed itself and on another side by the trunk at the foot of the bed. The trunk where the rats play.

Annie is a huge dog. I am 5'6" and if she sits next to me on the couch, she is taller than me. She also possesses a magnificent tongue, which is probably bigger than either Sushi or Saké.

Annie the Weeping Angel.

For the Doctor Who fans, we call Annie our weeping angel, due to her uncanny ability to show up places without our realization. She's huge and lumbering, yet she can move silently and surprise you when you least expect it. Thus it isn't too surprising that I managed to kick our other two dogs plus one of our cats out of the bedroom without even noticing that giant Annie was also in the room.

I may not have noticed her, but Sushi and Saké certainly did.

Once I realized Annie was there, I immediately took her out of the room. She wasn't paying any attention to the rats and probably wouldn't have bothered them anyway, but obviously that wasn't an option I was going to entertain.

Within moments of Annie's exit, Saké was back to normal, exploring and playing on the bed as usual. Sushi was not quite as comfortable. She hunkered down under a pillow, turned to the wall, and began grooming furiously. Dave sat on the bed with her for about ten minutes and she didn't relax a bit. We put her back in her cage, deciding she'd calm down once she was back in her own safe environment. She climbed immediately in the nest and after a while finally came out and was her usual self.

So, the lesson here: perhaps instead of the Bento Box we should have built the girls a Tardis. They would be no match for the weeping angels.