Rat Creature's Journal

It's not exactly that I had forgotten already how much energy and destructive initiative young rats have once they've gotten over their initial shyness, but there definitely was rose-tinted nostalgia blurring those memories. In any case I now remember why the free playtime outside I give younger rats has always been only an hour or two at most, whereas I let older ones out as much as they like as long as I'm home.

I also need to come up with more entertainment to occupy them now that they feel secure outside. Currently Noah in particular expends most of his not inconsiderable energy trying to get out of their play enclosure (simple wood panels held together with cable binders), that I put up for their safety while they are this young and reckless. Though even with the escape attempts, it still makes watching them easier. And the ferret climbing tree I bought for them has been a big hit, but clearly I now need to do some more landscaping to satisfy their exploratory drive.

( It's too bad that I don't have a photo of them yawning, because that is just about the cutest thing I've seen them do yet (somehow especially endearing combined with dumbo ears), but they are cute without extra effort too. )

They now all come up onto my hand when I put it in the cage, and climb onto me and sit on my shoulder. They now also let me pet them. They are not yet comfortable to be grabbed and picked up, and they haven't yet learned to come when I call either, so I won't let them run outside yet. But they are definitely interested in exploring outside the cage, so I have to be watchful now.

In preparation for future playtime I have made a simple enclosure from wooden panels connected with cable binders that I can put up to let them play outside while they are very little without guarding every tiny opening between, beneath or into my furniture, so that may happen soon. Previously I just let tiny ones play in the whole room like adults, but it is just extremely stressful to keep track of them when they are tiny. My last ones squeezed themselves beneath my mattress for example and in all sorts of places, even with me doing my best to block all gaps between walls and furniture and make the room safe. Obviously it's more interesting for them if they can explore the whole room, but they will have to make do for the sake of my nerves.

I mean, the size of the enclosure will be all of the center of the room so they can run further than in the cage if they like, and obviously I will put in something for them to climb, and hide, and such for entertainment. I have a large branch now, but I'm looking into whether there are maybe cat scratching tree combos that would maybe work for rats as a more varied playground. I've also seen a kind of ferret play tree in a pet store that looked real nice and good for rats (probably because they are closer in size than cats), but it was quite expensive unfortunately (the ones for cats were too). So I'm still looking for something like that.

Finally, I have decided to go with Linus and Leo for the new names I wasn't decided on yet.

( first rat impressions with some pictures )

I've just come back from getting my three baby rats, who are tiny and adorable. They are still a bit shy, mostly hiding in one of their tubes, but they've already found the food and water and are coming out to grab bits of food only to hide again to eat it. So they are not easy to photograph yet, but starting to settle in.

Emil
8.3.2007 - 11.9.2009

I had Emil put down this afternoon. The vet said that with this rapid a decline it was most likely a tumor inside, and that there was no sense to try antibiotics further in the bad condition he was in. And he had been suffering the last few days. (I even thought for a moment earlier today that he had died on his own because his body was so cold when I checked on him and he didn't react anymore, but after a moment I saw and heard that he was still breathing.)

Anyway, I cuddled with him for a while at home to say goodbye, hoping that even though he didn't seem very aware anymore he maybe still enjoyed being with me and lying on a warm body when his own wasn't even maintaining body temperature anymore, and then I brought him to vet to end his misery.

I hope I helped make the two and a half years he had a good life for him. He was only sick for a short time, barely two weeks, and he had never any health problems before, so he was luckier than many of my other rats. Though of course today it doesn't feel lucky.

( some photos of Emil )

For the first time in years I am without rats. It feels very lonely.

I called the vet this morning to ask whether there would be any sense in bringing Emil in, but they don't have any results yet on the cultures from the nasal swap, and they would not be able to do anything to help. Meanwhile Emil has been awful. If I wasn't clinging to the small chance that an antibiotic might help yet (though the vet thinks with his rapid decline and his apathy there might be an internal tumor as well), I would have taken him to be put down today.

Instead I'm trying my best to provide sick care, ( cut for bodily fluids, sickness details. )

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.

My elderly rat Emil (now two and a half) who had a remarkably robust health until now, has started to develop the usual awful breathing problems of older rats. He's now on the second antibiotic, after the first did nothing, and we've been playing out a daily drama with me trying to get the disgusting stuff into him.

The first antibiotic was at least only a small amount (0.2ml) but with the second I have to give 1ml. Supposedly this one is designed to be given orally to pets and tastes okay, but it smells disgusting. I have never given this before, and I got a drop on my t-shirt that Emil spit out in his struggling, and the mere smell is horrible. Sort of like a fake not-vanilla, only chalkier. It's really hard to describe. As this is a rat who notices fruit starting to go off way before me, it's not wonder he's resisting. Yesterday the vet got it into him, but that was with two people, i.e. the assistant immobilized Emil, and the vet squeezed the antibiotic into his mouth. Living alone I don't have that advantage, and Emil is also much less intimidated with me. On the bright side he didn't pee on me like he did with the vet's assistant either, so in that sense less terror is good.

Still, I got a reasonable amount of the stuff into his mouth and held him upright a bit afterwards so he had to swallow instead of being able to spit it out or wipe it off, and I hope it'll be enough, and that it works.

Ignatz
8.3.2007 - 16.7.2009

I had Ignatz put down this afternoon. I posted a lot about his sickness before, and there was nothing to be done. The spider venom didn't slow the cancer down, and at the end the bulge on his throat from the tumor and the wound bleeding had gotten so large that he could not even groom his face with his paws any longer or walk without struggle, and the myco didn't respond anymore to antibiotics and his breathing was getting very labored. I tried to give him as much time as possible, and he fought hard to hold on, but of course we all loose to death in the end.

Still, two years and a little over four months is not such a bad age for a rat, and I hope he enjoyed what time he had. I'm sorry that Emil will be alone for the end of his life though, but he's just far too old that I'd risk baby rats with him for very little time of potential company.

I'll remember Ignatz as a good rat and companion to me: good natured and affectionate, playful and sometimes cuddly, and never aggressive (not even to the vet).

( some photos of Ignatz )

I brought Ignatz to the vet this morning and it turns out the huge, fast growing bulge was both from bleeding into the wound and beneath that the tumor also had returned. I probably didn't notice that earlier, because I thought the smaller, remaining bulge was still the previous internal bleeding slowly returning to normal and that made the tumor less obvious. The vet only noticed the more solid core after he drained quite a bit of blood from the poor guy.

The vet offered to put Ignatz down right away, or to inject him with spider venom which sometimes can slow down tumor growth and put him on antibiotics again for the myco, to try to push the breathing problems back and buy him a little more time.

Because I can't bear to put my pets down unless they are not just old and/or incurably sick but also seriously suffering from that sickness, I decided to wait for now and try the antibiotics and the venom. He's still eating after all, and the breathing problems are not so bad yet that they are distressing him, and when I asked the vet whether the tumor itself was hurting him, I was told that the bulge of the tumor may be uncomfortable if it chafes on the ground and such, but not painful itself.

I want Ignatz to have as much time as possible -- to sleep, eat, cuddle and all the things he still does even sick as he is -- and also have a little more time myself to say goodbye and let him go. :(

The last two weeks Ignatz wound swelling went slowly down like expected, and it seemed all was okay, though he wasn't very active. Then yesterday evening I noticed that it looked more swollen again and seemed come back (why always on weekends, why?). He's still eating and doesn't seem to be in pain, so I decided against bringing him to the vet during the weekend emergency hours, because from my previous experience with this I don't think there can be done much. I mean, either the bleeding is back even after two weeks of healing and they certainly couldn't do any heroic interventions for that the last two times I brought him for this beyond hoping for the best, or the tumor itself is somehow back and growing fast or something, and then nothing could be done either.

So considering that Ignatz doesn't seem to be suffering right now, I decided to wait until Monday for my vet's regular opening hours -- which admittedly is also more convenient, less crowded, and much cheaper because of the lack of the weekend emergency fee. I had already planned to bring him Monday anyway, because the rattling breathing sounds from his chronic myco lung infection are also back, and though it by now has been already treated with four different antibiotic courses in the past, I thought that maybe there could be still some other they can try this time. Though I don't know how that will be with his wound now being worse on top of everything.

So anyway, it doesn't look good for the little guy, but I'm sort of resigned and numb about this by now.

Today Ignatz got the stitches taken out. The wound is still very swollen from the previous bleeding, but I just hope he's healing beneath as well. The vet said the blood should be reabsorbed over the next two or three weeks, so I guess it'll look awful for a while yet.

I've also taken the divider out of the cage so he's together with Emil again. That thankfully went without any scuffling that might have happened because he still smells of the vet or the separation of the last ten days. Emil just climbed over Ignatz a few times, peed on him and then there was some grooming, so all things considered a fairly friendly welcome back so far. Which is good because of course Ignatz is still recovering. I mean, they haven't fought much since they were out of their rowdy young adult days, and even then never so serious that there were any bleeding wounds or anything, but still, you never know.

Anyway, they now have each other for company and cuddling again, and Emil the full run of the cage, so I hope he'll be less frustrated, and both happier than isolated from each other.

I'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.

Because the wound area has been really swollen over the weekend I brought Ignatz in to the vet again this afternoon. I didn't think it was an emergency because he was eating and behaving mostly okay. Turns out it wasn't swelling but the wound had bled internally. So the vet drew a disturbingly huge amount of blood from the wound in a syringe. (It was at least a full human size syringe, and that from a rat!) The vet said however that the bleeding itself must have stopped already, otherwise Ignatz wouldn't still be alive. I hope he's right about the bleeding, and that Ignatz will now heal okay. In any case I suspect Ignatz is now more comfortable without all that blood in the wound pressing on things, though once we got home he just hid in his house. But then I suppose I would feel really crappy with such blood loss too. If you have any good health vibes to spare, Ignatz could certainly use them.

Ignatz is doing better. He's started to venture out of his house more often, picked different sleeping spots sometimes and has been coming out to greet me when I'm near the cage doors, so he's not that lethargic anymore. He's really annoyed with the antibiotics though, and unfortunately spit some of the medicine out. I had a bit more than needed in the needle-less syringe I shoved into his mouth (the vet said I shouldn't give it mixed into food), so I hope I got something like a dose into him.

Meanwhile Emil is not pleased at all with the current state of affairs either, because parts of his cage are closed to him, and things are much more boring too, what with no brother to snuggle and scuffle with.

I tried to take photos of Ignatz' throat, but I he didn't really cooperate with me, so I only have a picture that shows one side of his shaved throat and the fetching silver glitter stuff they covered him in (some sort of disinfectant I assume), and a blurry one taken through the cage door as he was drinking.

( post surgery photos of Ignatz )

Thanks for all your good wishes, they helped a lot.

Ignatz got through the operation and is now back home. The vet was right and it turned out to be a tumor, which of course wasn't what I had hoped for, not just because tumors may likely come back, but because it was much harder to operate, especially as according to the vet the tumor was very connected to the surrounding tissue so the operation was very bloody. Ignatz still seems quite lethargic and unwell, which I guess makes sense after loosing blood. He also looks rather pitiful because of the shaved fur around his throat, and the rest of his coat looks bedraggled as if he hasn't bothered to groom yet.

But the vet said he woke from the anesthesia okay, and he that he has eaten some (though I could see that the rodent food mix they had wasn't the kind he likes), and now that he's home I've seen him eat some banana before retreating into his house as well. The vet also told me that he actually tried to escape from the box this afternoon. They had to keep him in his smallish transport box I brought him in, because they didn't have room on their station in one of their regular cages, and I didn't know he learned how to open it (he never managed with me nearby) but he apparently succeeded there and they had to tape it shut on top of the latch. So I take that as a good sign of initiative and recovery, that he tried to stage jailbreaks.

I still have to keep him separate from Emil, so that the stitches on his throat are left alone and he can recover, because obviously another rat could get easier at them, as Ignatz can only reach them with his paws, not gnaw on them with teeth, though the vet said he was fairly good with them so far, and hasn't disturbed the wound. And of course he smells very strange much more so than after a regular vet visit, so while my two usually don't tussle much any more, Emil might react to that as well, and I've divided their cage for now.

This is one of the times I'm really glad I spend quite a bit of money on a sensible rat cage, because I didn't have to set up a separate, unfamiliar recovery cage, but could just put in a premade divider to block some of their levels from each other, and he can recover in a familiar smelling place, and Emil just has the inconvenience that the upper area will be blocked to him, but remains in the cage he knows as well.

I have to bring Ignatz in again tomorrow for a wound check, but for now he's curled up in his house and as okay as can be expected I guess, after after anesthesia, removal of a large tumor, and loosing quite a bit of blood. But I hope he'll recover, and that having had this operation will turn out the right choice that will buy him the most time and best quality of life possible.

ETA: Emil just discovered that I cut off much of his cage from him and seems very cross about that. He now checked whether the unwanted divider was still there no less than three time in the last ten minutes: Going up the stairs where normally there is a hole and pushing his nose against the metal wire mesh now blocking his access to the upstairs levels (he got the lower levels so he can get outside easily, whereas Ignatz for obvious reasons doesn't feel like playing so he got upstairs).

I'm just back from dropping my poor rat Ignatz off with the vet, and he'll be operated on in a couple of hours, sometime around noon, so if any of you can spare him some good wishes, he could really use them. He's fairly old for a rat and the tumor/abscess/growth/whatever it'll turn out to be is largish (though it didn't grow much since last week) and in a tricky spot being right on his vulnerable throat (or maybe his thyroid if it's a tumor). They'll call me around four in the afternoon to tell me how it went, and if all goes well I can bring him back home late this afternoon. Meanwhile Emil is still sleeping and hasn't noticed yet that I didn't bring his brother with me when I came back. I really hope all will go well. *is a nervous wreck*

So I brought Ignatz in to my vet during their emergency hours today, and even though I showed up right after they opened I had to wait almost two hours to be seen. Then I had the bad luck that on the emergency roster wasn't one of the practice's vets of whom I know they are experienced with rats, but someone unfamiliar. Anyway, after feeling that cherry-sized bulge the vet told me she thought it might be a tumor rather an abscess because it is right where the thyroid gland is, and also didn't feel warm to her, even though I stressed how I'm sure it just appeared yesterday rather than growing. She said something of tumors sometimes first growing inward and then suddenly bulging outward -- it sounded dubious to me, but it's not like I'm an expert.

In any case, she said whether tumor of abscess, the placement of the thing was tricky because so many vital nerves, blood vessels and such were there, so it was more problematic to open and remove, and as Ignatz is still breathing and eating okay it's not an emergency, and they can't do that kind of thing on the weekend so I'd need to make an appointment for a regular operation. The earliest date I could get for one wasn't until Thursday (!), which I find quite worrying, I mean that is almost a week, so when the assistant told me that I even had her talk to the doctor again, whether it wasn't dangerous to wait this long to do anything, but she didn't seem to think so.

I really hope she's right. It's not like I can do anything further, though I have no idea why they couldn't at least, like biopsy the thing by sticking a needle in to see whether pus comes out or not or something, without it being a big risk, but apparently that wouldn't be a good idea. I guess I'll just have to wait and hope for the best until Thursday.

I wonder whether these people who claim pets are good for your health ever take into account the times when you're a stressed, nervous wreck because something is unexpectedly wrong with them. I think I rather need something like a tribble, only sterile or neutered/spayed or whatever people do to keep pet tribbles responsibly without causing ecological disasters. It would be small enough for my place, furry and calming, and most importantly they seem quite resilient, unless you poison them.

I just let my rats out this evening and noticed a huge growth/bulge/something (about cherry-sized!) on the underside of Ignatz' throat. I'm fairly sure it wasn't there (or not nearly as large) yesterday, because I like to scritch him under his chin and would have felt it just like I did today. I don't see/feel any wounds, but I guess it still could be an abscess? I see an emergency vet trip coming tomorrow morning. I wish I had noticed it early this afternoon, then I could have gone the regular vet hours, which wouldn't have cost the extra emergency charge, and spared me a night of worry about something horrible happening to him with this. He seems okay, is eating and running around as well as usual (he is elderly after all), so that is something, but still, there is a cherry sized something on his throat. I just hope it won't impact his breathing and swallowing if this worsens.