my rat Dustin again...

[ratcreature]

This afternoon I brought Dustin to the vet to get this small lump under his belly I detected Thursday looked at. So the vet felt the lump (and since it's on his lower belly Dustin promptly peed when pressed there), and unfortunately it's not clearly defined from the surrounding area. The vet suggested to treat it with spider venom before considering an operation, which is supposed to get the growth to become encapsulated in a more distinct shape or something like that, so that it can be removed more easily.

When I had rats before the vets never did anything like that, but the one where I'm now is quite experienced with rats, so hope this works as it is supposed to. I also asked whether the venom would tax Dustin's system further, since he still has the remaining effects from his respiratory problems and mycoplasma infection (i.e. that he's much less active than is brother etc.), but the vet assured me that it wouldn't have such negative effects. So now I have to bring him for at least two more injections over the next couple of days, and then the lump is going to be checked again, and will hopefully have a better shape for removal. There's apparently also a very small chance that it will respond so well to just the spider venom treatment alone that it shrinks and actually vanishes, but I don't expect that to happen, and it's not like Dustin has had much luck with his health in his life so far.

Anyway, the poor guy is sleeping now, stressed by both the vet visit and the heat which my rats dislike even under much more pleasant circumstances.

Comments

[cereta.livejournal.com]

Oh, hon. I'm so sorry you're both having to deal with this. Poor little guy.

[ratcreature]

Thanks, I'm crossing my fingers that it will work out for him, but poor Dustin somehow got dealt a shitty hand with his health.

My previous rats also had respiratory problems and/or tumors, as both are fairly common conditions with rats, but none had such serious problems starting while still quite young (Dustin will be just one year on July 31), it was more when they were going towards two years. I mean, I decided to get male rats partly because their cancer risk is said to be lower than for female rats (who get cancer in their mammary glands quite often) and my last two rats died from that and it broke my heart when I had to put to them to sleep eventually. Actually I didn't get new rats for several years after that because I couldn't imagine dealing with cancer again, perhaps in part because my mother had died of cancer too not too long after that, and I was afraid of the reminder even just with pets.

[jcalanthe]

Poor Dustin! I hope the spider venom works as promised & this clears up without too much fuss.

[ratcreature]

Thanks, I hope so too.

[dragovianknight.livejournal.com]

Poor Dustin. ::pets::

Poor Ratcreature. ::hugs::

I hope the spider venom works and Dustin's okay.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, I hope it'll work out too.

He's a tenacious little guy though, so that has to count in his favor. I mean earlier this year he made through his lung abscess, even though the thing was resistant to half the antibiotics the vet tried and fast adapting to the others, and he had moments when I didn't really believe he would make it, but he did (granted he came out slightly worse for wear, since mycoplasma is a chronic condition for rats that can only be contained not cured, and I think the abscess did some permanent damage to his lungs, so he just isn't as active anymore and avoids exertion).

So at least as far as you can tell with pets he doesn't seem to give up easily, and he right now definitely still likes his life, enjoys eating and chewing on my stuff, and even climbs and plays, if at a slower pace than his brother, so I want to give him the best chances to have as much time as he can.

[brownbetty]

I'm so sorry to hear that. Dustin has my best wishes.

[ratcreature]

Thanks. I hope he proves as tough with this as he did with his lung infection. He had days when I didn't really believe he would make it, but he hung on and came through, so I hope the same will be true if he has to have an operation.

I mean he may not be as fit as he would have been without the mycoplasma, but he still likes his life, enjoys eating, snuggling with his brother 8and sometimes even with me *g*), chewing on my stuff, and even climbing and playing (if at a moderate pace). Not to mention that the little pervert still enjoys wanking quite a lot. (Amusingly enough there's distinct differences between the masturbation practices of rats, like I almost never see his brother licking and fondling himself at length, whereas Dustin does so during almost every full grooming session, and really there's few things funnier than watching a rat pull intently on its dick with both paws while licking it at the same time, only to topple over backwards from whatever precarious position he had balanced himself for grooming, because he forgot to watch his balance...)

[brownbetty]

Hee! I never realized what I was missing out on by never having had an unaltered male animal. That is pretty funny. I'm glad he's enjoying himself. So to speak.

[ratcreature]

Yeah well, the female rats I once had licked themselves a lot too, it just didn't look as funny, otoh they also did things which each other (both licking and mounting). But my two current male rats are staunchly straight, no matter that they lack any such options. I have never seen any boy-on-boy action from them, not even dominance mounting, which my female rats did quite a lot. Their snuggling and mutual grooming is strictly (and boringly) platonic.

[iamza.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear Dustin is still feeling poorly. I hope the spider venom works!

[ratcreature]

He doesn't actually feel worse from the tumor right now, that's still quite small. The other stuff that resulted from his mycoplasma infection probably will never get better, only worse when it flares up again (as it is incurable in rats, it can only be treated, though most rats with mycoplasma are lucky enough to only develop symptoms when they are older). I just hope Dustin still has some time before it will get worse. ATM he's just not as fit, and he is not breathing as easily as a rat with a completely healthy lung, but he still likes to eat, to snuggle and to play sometimes, the latter just at a moderate pace. So his quality of life is mostly okay, it's just that any operation especially with small animals such as rats puts quite a strain on them anyway, and he's already has a handicap. But obviously I don't want the lump to grow or worse, if it turns out to be some malignant thing like cancer, to spread either.

[iamza.livejournal.com]

Is there a chance that the lump might be benign?

[ratcreature]

Yeah, my rat book says that about half the tumors rats develop are benign, and even with cancer tumors there are kinds where the prognosis isn't too bad if you get to it when it's still small.

I mean, rats aren't particularly long-lived pets even if you have a best case scenario, if they are lucky they live two and a half years (though so far none of mine reached that old an age), very rarely I've heard of one that's lived three years, but death with just two years or even younger isn't uncommon. So in terms of his lifespan giving him even three or four more months is quite significant, but otoh you have to weigh carefully that you don't make the time they do have miserable in the hopes of a "later" that may not come.

I mean, he might live for quite some time even with an untreated cancer, e.g. with one of my previous rats I decided against an operation, because the other rat I had, which had also mammary gland cancer was so extremely miserable afterward and never fully recovered from the anaesthesia since unfortunately the vet I went to back then wasn't very experienced with rats and gave an injection which dosage is hard to judge instead of an inhalation method, but I didn't know any better then (now asked the local rat club for a good vet, even though he's quite far from my neighborhood), and the vet didn't even get all the cancer, so in the end I had them both put to sleep at the same time, but the rat with the visible large tumor felt fine for quite some time, while he rat for whom I got an operation was miserable and I had to put her to sleep at the same time as the other one anyway, because by the time the first one's untreated cancer had become so large that she was uncomfortable, it had come back internally for the second one.

Still other kinds of tumors may kill rats quickly if not treated, so in the end you have to be able to trust your vet that he knows what he's doing with rats and has enough experience with them to give you good advice.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

Hope he feels better soon.

And may I just say that it was only a few minutes later that I finally went, "Oh! She isn't dusting her rats! It's the rat's name!"

Duh.

Though it does raise the question of whether it's ever necessary to dust a rat.

[ratcreature]

Thanks.

And actually I do have to dust and vacuum more often now that I have rats, because their respiratory system is rather delicate (at least for something that's supposedly vermin *g*) and reacts badly to dust and such, so the state of (not-quite-)cleanliness I maintained for myself before, which I never thought of as too bad, wouldn't have done for rats. As it is I probably should still dust more often and more thoroughly, but well, I hate it, and so the poor guys just have to cope.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

I always figured rats had to be way hardy in order to survive and be, um, disease vectors and such.

Is it just something about domesticated rats--that they've been bred to be vulnerable?

[ratcreature]

Not really. There are some issues that came with becoming lab rats and pets, but wild rats have many of the same problems, they just reproduce a lot in the wild.

I mean they are only fully adult with about six months, but can get pregnant with five weeks when they only weigh 80g or so themselves and are still really small, and they have many babies even when they are not yet grown. Like when I got my previous female rats from a pet store they were unfortunately already pregnant even though I got them when they were just seven weeks or so, and ended up with fifteen rats instead of two (back then I was still living with my parents, and my mom was *thrilled*, especially since the rats weren't tame yet when they had their babies and became aggressive whenever I came too near, for weeks I could only touch them with leather gloves, as I soon had found out that when a rat means business their bites are vicious). Nine of the babies came from just one rat, and both she and the babies all survived despite the strain of becoming pregnant long before she was anywhere near fully grown. Ad she could have gotten pregnant again right after giving birth, so for their numbers it doesn't matter much if many die early, and only a few manage to get old. the most common health problems rats get, like tumors and respiratory problems won't kill them quickly, even if they remain untreated.

But it's really a different issue if you want a single, specific rat to become old and stay healthy.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. And likely rat babies would need minimal investment from their parents because of the numbers thing. But that's a pain if you're keeping one. Gah.

I remember awhile back, before we had 2 cats, meeting a tame rat and thinking he was way cool, and trying to talk Peter into it. He wasn't convinced (and he wasn't into the ferret idea either). But the rat was really clever and friendly.