Mornings

Sushi

Sushi Update

After talking to the vet, Sushi is staying back on ciproflaxin for the time being, possibly for the rest of her life. There doesn't seem to be a real good answer as to why she takes a turn for the worse every time we take her off of it, but we're done screwing around with it. She's a great sport about taking her medicine twice a day, so if that is what it takes for her to stay healthy and live a happy, comfortable life, than that is what we'll do.

Sushi has a piece of watermelon.

Sushi

I'm a little nervous about Sushi today. We took her off the ciproflaxin Thursday night as planned, but kept her on the prednisone twice a day. By Sunday morning her breathing was congested again and by Sunday afternoon she was sliding down the ramp in the cage, rather than walking.

It doesn't make any sense to me that the ciproflaxin is the medication making such a difference for her - I really thought it was the pred. Regardless, she's clearly worse off after 48 hours without the antibiotic. We started her on it again last night and will call the vet today.

Sushi before her latest downturn.

A Face for the Movies

It probably isn't fair to Saké that most of her pictures on this blog feature her eating. She's hard to resist though - she is at her most photogenic when having a snack.

Saké enjoys a piece of melon.

Feeling Better

Sushi is back on track in terms of recovery. Today she finishes theciproflaxin (again) but will remain on the prednisone twice a day for a while longer. Hopefully this will give us an indication of which medication is making such an improvement in her health.

Regardless, she's back to her old energetic self. I love this picture of her, because even though her eyes are ringed with crud, they are wide open and bright. We've seen too little this in the past few weeks. She's a pretty special little rat.

Sushi

Smart Saké

Saké continually amazes me. Late last week, while the girls were separated due to Sushi's illness, I walked by the cage and noticed something strange. A piece of flannel bedding had been folded up into a neat rectangle and tucked under the water bottle. I asked Dave about it but he had nothing to do with it.

A closer examination revealed that the water bottle was leaking nonstop (it has since been replaced). The square of flannel was soaked but the rest of the cage was dry.

Since neither Dave nor I had any part in folding or carefully placing the flannel, the culprit must have been Saké. I know rats are smart but this sort of thing continually amazes me. This isn't the first time she has displayed such intelligence and I think if more people understood how smart rats are, they might not get such a bad rap.

Genius.

Reunited...Again

Yesterday the girls finally rejoined each other again, after being apart since Wednesday night. That was when we found Sushi nearly unable to stand, definitely unable to navigate the ramp in their cage, and firmly sliding backward again on her recovery.

Dave called the vet and she is back on ciproflaxin and prednisone twice each day. There seems to be a pattern here - each time she seems back on the road to recovery and then suddenly she slides backward again. The consistent thing in each case is that it occurs about 2 days after she finishes her course of ciproflaxin and the prednisone goes to once per day. So now she's back on both and once she finishes the ciproflaxin on Thursday, the prednisone will stay at twice per day for now. Hopefully that will provide some indication of what is going on.

She's a trooper, but this is so tough on her. She hardly did anything but sleep from Wednesday through Sunday morning, but by Sunday night she'd perked up a bit and by Monday she seemed back to normal. Fortunately she never reached the level of dehydration experienced before and required no fluid injections - just her meds and some quiet rest.

Fingers crossed that she can beat this once and for all.