RatCreature (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratcreature) wrote2011-11-20 03:11 pm
ratcreature) wrote2011-11-20 03:11 pm
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sigh
I will have to let Noah (my rat with the slow growing lung tumor) be euthanized. When I brought him to the vet on Friday he had lost 18g just from the Tuesday vet visit, and that despite me trying to nurse him with extra tasty food, appetite enhancing injections from the vet, and a recovery supplement for a while now. He only weighed 410g (probably less today) down from over 500g when he was healthy. He's only skin and bones now, and lethargic too. The attempt to see whether it might be an additional infection causing the deterioration didn't pan out either, at least the antibiotic did nothing. I guess the tumor from his lungs just has finally grown and metastasized badly. :(
I didn't have him put down on Friday already, because I had Leo with me too, and I also wanted to have a little longer to say goodbye, so the vet just gave me some pain meds for him. I don't know for sure that he's in pain, but he hasn't gone outside the cage for some time now, and moves very laboriously, and the vet said that it's quite possible that he might be. So I hope the pain meds help him. And the last days he's not been as meticulously about grooming himself anymore either, e.g. he doesn't clean up the red stuff that comes from a sick rat's eyes and nose anymore, so there are red crusts around one of his eyes. He did seem to enjoy some of the cream of wheat pudding I fed him yesterday.
Well, two years and almost two months isn't too bad for a rat, but still. I'll likely go tomorrow. And then poor Leo will be alone. I'd never have thought he would be the one to survive longest, what with his myco having been bad since April and some bad scares since, but he's a stubborn guy.
I didn't have him put down on Friday already, because I had Leo with me too, and I also wanted to have a little longer to say goodbye, so the vet just gave me some pain meds for him. I don't know for sure that he's in pain, but he hasn't gone outside the cage for some time now, and moves very laboriously, and the vet said that it's quite possible that he might be. So I hope the pain meds help him. And the last days he's not been as meticulously about grooming himself anymore either, e.g. he doesn't clean up the red stuff that comes from a sick rat's eyes and nose anymore, so there are red crusts around one of his eyes. He did seem to enjoy some of the cream of wheat pudding I fed him yesterday.
Well, two years and almost two months isn't too bad for a rat, but still. I'll likely go tomorrow. And then poor Leo will be alone. I'd never have thought he would be the one to survive longest, what with his myco having been bad since April and some bad scares since, but he's a stubborn guy.
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