bad news

[ratcreature]

It turns out that the problem with Kieran's left ear is actually a tumor growing there. There is also an infection that produces the gunk I've seen, but it's a secondary problem to the tumor growing in his head in the ear canal. :(

The vet gave me an antibiotic and eardrops to hopefully help with the infection part and improve his symptoms, but of course that won't help with the tumor. I've also been given medication to counteract the digestive problems with antibiotics, because last time when he got some for his bumblefoot sores he got bad diarrhea fairly quickly. And of course for these sores I still wash his feet twice a day and apply two different salves. So five meds in all to apply and give him every day. Elderly rats have health like elderly people with almost as many meds. And none of this will even get to his worst problem.

I guess there is only hoping that it will be a slow growing tumor, and he'll still have some time feeling okay. Not the news I wanted to get after yesterday. :(

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Poor Kieran, and poor you! I hope that once the infection is dealt with everything will settle down for a good long while.

[ratcreature]

I hope so too, but these rats have just the worst luck. Why couldn't it have been "just" an infection? No it has to be some fucking ear cancer.

[king_touchy]

I'm not generally one for hugs, but honestly. (hug)

[ratcreature]

Thanks. It just seems so unfair. First Rusty declining so fast, and now Kieran's problem is so much more serious than I expected. I never even heard of there being tumors in the ears. But I guess everything can develop them. :(

[bluemeridian]

I'm kind of speechless at this run of bad luck. Fingers crossed that the infection at least will clear up and give him some good time left. :(

[ratcreature]

I hope so, but considering how things have been going I'm bracing for the worst, they just never seem to catch a break. With all of them the worst outcome seems to happen. I mean, first Silas died an inexplicable sudden death, then Oskar got a bite in a scuffle that didn't look so bad and was cleaned and stitched, but then it turned out that there must have been internal injuries too of which he died a day later, then Rusty suddenly deteriorates in just a few days even though the antibiotic had seemed to push his infection back, and now this with Kieran. It's just awful. If I believed in astrology I'd be checking whether they were born under some malicious star. :(

[oyceter]

Oh my god, I am so sorry =(. Especially given what you have already been through with the other guys =(.

[ratcreature]

Yeah. It's like a double whammy. I'm still feeling a little numb.

[astridv.livejournal.com]

So sorry about your rats. It sounds incredibly stressful for you too.

[ratcreature]

Yeah it is really stressful. Just administering all the medicine and then monitoring the rat closely, and I sort of end up with a background anxiety of rat health worry too, that I then sometimes becomes conscious when I notice that my stomach is feeling all clenched up.

These times always make me wonder whether I shouldn't switch to a cat as a pet after all, because there you might have a decade before it starts getting all the old age ailments rather than a year with a rat before the problems tend to start. Though of course you just might get a cat with some chronic illness that manifest early and then give it meds every day for fifteen years. It's not like you'd kick it to the curb because you end up with the bad luck of a diabetic cat or one needing heart medicine or whatever. And in the end you just can't be safe from illness and age with pets (except the heartless jerks who do kick their sick animals out). And I don't have a garden and not much space and I find the idea of cat food slightly gross too, whereas with rats I can just share my vegetarian food preferences for the most part (admittedly most commercial rat food has some animal protein in it, but its extruded pellets so you can't even tell).

[astridv.livejournal.com]

These times always make me wonder whether I shouldn't switch to a cat as a pet after all, because there you might have a decade before it starts getting all the old age ailments rather than a year with a rat before the problems tend to start.

Yeah, your chances with a cat are a lot better. Sure, you might get unlucky and get a cat that needs a lot of medical attention early on, but with rats you have the certainty that they will. And that every 2-3 years you'll go through the same heartache again when you have to say goodbye. I sounds hard.

Also, nothing is quite like the feeling of a cat purring while using a part of your body as a cushion.

I was a vegetarian for the first years we had our cats, and the food never bothered me. But I stopped eating meat for health and environmental reasons, not because of an aversion to meat.