Saturday, January 09, 2010

Sigh

We took Master Chef, our oldest rat, and George, our ginger cat, to the vet today. George seems to be in good health, with a little staph on his chin and some anxiety. He's pending blood tests but checked out well with a shiny coat, etc. He spent half his visit curled up in Dr. Gray's sink.

Master Chef perked up and raced around, looking at everything. This was confusing as we had taken her there to be put to sleep, a very difficult decision. She's had a large tumor for about three months and has been lethargic, with dull eyes that don't even open all the way. She's also lost weight and muscle and her hair is falling out.

Her respiration is also on the fast side, which is a big sign of distress. Raspberry, who passed away a couple of weeks ago, went into extreme respiratory distress, opening her mouth and gasping for air, before we could do anything to help her and we didn't want Master Chef to go through the same thing. But then she started acting like everything was groovy at the vet's.

Dr. Gray said most of the pets his owners finally decide to have euthanized act much better when they come into the office. He said it's the fight or flight reaction. They're scared and masking symptoms. Which made me think Master Chef would feel that much worse later today as her adreneline wore off and she paid the price of using up so many resources. So I said I would like her put to sleep anyway, which was really, really hard.

Then I came home, took a nap and had crazy dreams.

I wonder what Calliope, our oldest rat makes of all this. It's down to just her and Strawberry, who's a little loopy from having a big ear infection as a baby. Strawberry walks around with her head crooked and is silly. Calliope has had four cagemates that have died since we got her. Does that worry her? I don't know. I wish these guys weren't so prone to tumors.

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