RatCreature (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratcreature) wrote2013-03-09 10:23 am
ratcreature) wrote2013-03-09 10:23 am
Entry tags:
rat health woes
Rusty's bumblefoot sores haven't been healing well, instead infection spread to a lymph node in his right leg which became swollen. So he was put on antibiotics on top of the wound salve stuff, but the first one didn't work. Then he was put on the second one (unfortunately that has to be given twice a day instead of just once) last Tuesday, but Wednesday night the infected lymph node broke open and he bled like crazy over night. Thursday morning there were large blood stains all over his sleeping places (soaked up into all the soft cloth and paper towels I now have in the cage to help with these pressure sores). I phoned my vet, whether I need to come in for the wound, but was told I could just go on with the antibiotic and salve, and gently cleaning the now open wound, as long as it stopped bleeding, which it had seemed to do, and wait for the next scheduled appointment the coming Tuesday.
And Rusty seemed okay, considering, but late yesterday morning he must have disturbed the wound again, because he was bleeding a lot again, even though it had looked okay the early morning. So I brought him to the vet yesterday afternoon after all, just to be on the safe side. She thoroughly cleaned the wound of all the crusty blood and such (he hated that, I think the disinfectant hurt a bit), and said that it didn't look too bad (like, it's not badly infected with pus or putrid or any of the truly gross things you can see with wounds gone bad), and that while the amount of blood loss obviously wasn't good, it was not dangerous (I had brought a pile of bloody paper towels to show the amount instead of just trying to describe blood stain diameters). However now that it was open it could be seen that there was quite a bit of granulation tissue that had formed inside, and that it might be necessary to operate and remove the extraneous bits for the wound to heal properly.
So now I'm still supposed to come in Tuesday when the second antibiotic had a week, and then Rusty will probably be operated on to remove that tissue. She said there was a chance that it might not be necessary if the wound starts to close and heal properly until then (rather than just dried blood crusting it up for a while), but she didn't seem to think that likely with the way that plug of granulation tissue was in the wound.
I still kind of hope that maybe he won't need the operation, because of course anesthesia is always a risk, especially with little animals, and he has been loosing weight with the ongoing infection in his feet and earlier the myco, and all the antibiotics he's had to take, and now he's been bleeding from that wound on top of everything. So an operation would be a lot of extra stress on his already taxed system. And of course operations make wounds larger, if cleaner, and afterwards he still might bother it, and impede the healing of the clean one. And of course he still has the bumblefoot sores that started all this too.
Poor Rusty.
And Rusty seemed okay, considering, but late yesterday morning he must have disturbed the wound again, because he was bleeding a lot again, even though it had looked okay the early morning. So I brought him to the vet yesterday afternoon after all, just to be on the safe side. She thoroughly cleaned the wound of all the crusty blood and such (he hated that, I think the disinfectant hurt a bit), and said that it didn't look too bad (like, it's not badly infected with pus or putrid or any of the truly gross things you can see with wounds gone bad), and that while the amount of blood loss obviously wasn't good, it was not dangerous (I had brought a pile of bloody paper towels to show the amount instead of just trying to describe blood stain diameters). However now that it was open it could be seen that there was quite a bit of granulation tissue that had formed inside, and that it might be necessary to operate and remove the extraneous bits for the wound to heal properly.
So now I'm still supposed to come in Tuesday when the second antibiotic had a week, and then Rusty will probably be operated on to remove that tissue. She said there was a chance that it might not be necessary if the wound starts to close and heal properly until then (rather than just dried blood crusting it up for a while), but she didn't seem to think that likely with the way that plug of granulation tissue was in the wound.
I still kind of hope that maybe he won't need the operation, because of course anesthesia is always a risk, especially with little animals, and he has been loosing weight with the ongoing infection in his feet and earlier the myco, and all the antibiotics he's had to take, and now he's been bleeding from that wound on top of everything. So an operation would be a lot of extra stress on his already taxed system. And of course operations make wounds larger, if cleaner, and afterwards he still might bother it, and impede the healing of the clean one. And of course he still has the bumblefoot sores that started all this too.
Poor Rusty.