rat woes

[ratcreature]

Emil is much worse. The second antibiotic hasn't been doing anything, except maybe have side effects, because he's been getting more and more lethargic and eating less in a much more rapid decline than I'm used to seeing with such a lung problem. Today was an especially bad decline. He hasn't eaten anything or come out of his house at all that I have seen. :( :( :(

Meanwhile I had brought him to the vet yesterday (then he wasn't quite as bad) because the antibiotic wasn't working, and the vet did a nasal swap to grow cultures and test antibiotics on them to see which might still work (if any). But of course the results aren't in yet. And the vet told me to give the previous antibiotic until then so that's what I have been doing, though with the rapid decline I'm now suspecting that side effects may have made him worse (Ignatz had a similar decline due to an antibiotic once though that was a different one). But of course I don't know for sure.

I still hope there'll be an antibiotic, and that he'll hold on until then, but he's been awful today. He has not even groomed himself, so his nose and eyes are crusted over with snot and the red stuff that comes from rats immune systems when they are sick.

Comments

[ratcreature]

Thanks. I'm so torn right now between trying to cling to hope that maybe Emil will hold on, and the vet will find an antibiotic, and this will turn around, and starting to resign myself to the idea that he might not make it after all, because he's been getting so much worse and is old already.

In a fair universe rats would live as long as turtles or at least as dogs. :(