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rat medical drama, continued
Jun. 24th, 2009 12:30 pmI'm sorry that this journal is all rat health minutiae all the time lately, but it's what's on my mind the last days. I guess at least I'm doing my part to dispel any illusions anyone might still have harbored that small rodents were uncomplicated, low maintenance pets, or not regularly causing you hundreds of Euro in accumulating vet costs.
Previously in this journal: Monday afternoon I last brought Ignatz to the vet and what I thought was some kind of swelling turned out to have been bleeding inside the wound. The vet thought the bleeding must have stopped (or Ignatz would have been dead) and drained off a disturbing amount of blood. I hoped all would be well.
Unfortunately the swelling returned, though at first I wasn't sure (there was still some after the vet removed blood from the wound), but I wasn't home much of yesterday and with a few hours difference it was clear that he had been bleeding again. I didn't manage to get him to the vet yesterday, but it really alarmed me. Such a small animal can only afford to loose so much blood after all, keeping in mind that this is like a plum-sized protrusion, much larger than the original tumor.
So of course this morning I brought him to the vet yet again, and well, the vet confirmed that it had been bleeding again, but also thought that the pressure from the blood against the skin would actually stop the bleeding inside, and it could heal, whereas if he were to drain blood again to relieve the pressure, it would just bleed again, causing Ignatz to loose yet more blood. So the vet didn't actually do anything.
On the one hand this is somewhat reassuring, in that the wound still might heal and the vet doesn't think my rat is slowly bleeding to death, on the other hand it is really kind of awful that there isn't some sort of heroic intervention or anything that could just fix this. But I guess you can't really help small animals as much as even cats or dogs, who at least can get IVs and stuff. And I guess fixing anything inside the wound would require an operation as bad and taxing as the first one, with him just bleeding out more.
On the hopeful side Ignatz is still eating, and today he does seem a bit more lively and attentive than yesterday, I hope because the blood loss slowed or stopped. It's a good thing of course that he sleeps and rests as he's supposed to, with "lively" I mean more things like whether or not he perks up when I'm near the cage and looks for contact rather than being lethargic.
At least he still seems determined to hang in there and to get better, which I hope will count for something. In any case I got a tube with high calorie nutrition paste at the vet's that is intended to help cats and dogs recover after surgery and such, but rats also like the foul smelling stuff (it's some kind of disgusting fatty fish oil mixed with sugary corn syrup and some other stuff and enriched with vitamins and minerals).
It's not like I can do anything else for him, besides offering him the most tasty foods and crossing my fingers.
Previously in this journal: Monday afternoon I last brought Ignatz to the vet and what I thought was some kind of swelling turned out to have been bleeding inside the wound. The vet thought the bleeding must have stopped (or Ignatz would have been dead) and drained off a disturbing amount of blood. I hoped all would be well.
Unfortunately the swelling returned, though at first I wasn't sure (there was still some after the vet removed blood from the wound), but I wasn't home much of yesterday and with a few hours difference it was clear that he had been bleeding again. I didn't manage to get him to the vet yesterday, but it really alarmed me. Such a small animal can only afford to loose so much blood after all, keeping in mind that this is like a plum-sized protrusion, much larger than the original tumor.
So of course this morning I brought him to the vet yet again, and well, the vet confirmed that it had been bleeding again, but also thought that the pressure from the blood against the skin would actually stop the bleeding inside, and it could heal, whereas if he were to drain blood again to relieve the pressure, it would just bleed again, causing Ignatz to loose yet more blood. So the vet didn't actually do anything.
On the one hand this is somewhat reassuring, in that the wound still might heal and the vet doesn't think my rat is slowly bleeding to death, on the other hand it is really kind of awful that there isn't some sort of heroic intervention or anything that could just fix this. But I guess you can't really help small animals as much as even cats or dogs, who at least can get IVs and stuff. And I guess fixing anything inside the wound would require an operation as bad and taxing as the first one, with him just bleeding out more.
On the hopeful side Ignatz is still eating, and today he does seem a bit more lively and attentive than yesterday, I hope because the blood loss slowed or stopped. It's a good thing of course that he sleeps and rests as he's supposed to, with "lively" I mean more things like whether or not he perks up when I'm near the cage and looks for contact rather than being lethargic.
At least he still seems determined to hang in there and to get better, which I hope will count for something. In any case I got a tube with high calorie nutrition paste at the vet's that is intended to help cats and dogs recover after surgery and such, but rats also like the foul smelling stuff (it's some kind of disgusting fatty fish oil mixed with sugary corn syrup and some other stuff and enriched with vitamins and minerals).
It's not like I can do anything else for him, besides offering him the most tasty foods and crossing my fingers.