Kimi the battler

I'm so proud of my ratties.

When I get sick, i'm all mope mope woe is me bleeaaaaaargh dribble snot run, but my ratties? They're so... stoic.

Linus and Kimi are both old old boys now... at about 2.5 years each, they've basically done well to come this far. Over the last few months we've battled a head tilt in Kimi (where he kinda leant sideways all the time and fell off soft cushions), and then the very scary sudden occurrence of Linus' big knee tumour - what looks like a malignant tumour the size of his head, very firmly attached to his knee, such that we couldn't remove it without amputation of an entire leg - not something lightly or easily done... and then the very heart-stopping lung infection incident with Linus looking utterly miserable, wouldn't eat, coughing up gunk, gurgling and wheezing and acting like he was just about to give up. He soldiered on though, my brave ol grampa boy and thank goodness it wasn't the tumour spreading to his lungs so he improved with medication - even though he's pretty much on antibiotics on and off for the rest of his life.

And then on Boxing day, when Kimi started with his laboured breathing, we didn't panic, but man it didn't help that it was a public holiday and so was the next day and vets were closed. We decided to wait the night out since Kimi was still breathing, still able to move around slowly, and would at least lick yoghurt off our fingers. I have to give credit to the Connoisseur brand of vanilla yoghurt (the very best of course) for being so yummy that even sick ratties who want nothing to do with anything will have some.

The next day, we went to the emergency vet, who charged us something special for an appointment on a public holiday. Sigh! It was so drama though - kids crying, police bringing in stray dogs, people with a beautiful great dane they were putting to sleep, someone's cat who decided to come back home after going missing for 6 weeks(!), and various other emergencies. The vet came and looked over Kimi and basically couldn't do anything. He did suggest that the anti-inflammatory medication we had started him on recently for his arthritis might have caused it, so we stopped that, and kept him on antibiotics for a bit.. The vet also injected some fluids into Kimi. This was to be the first of many vet visits and injections that week - I think 4 in 4 days! and then a few follow ups afterwards.. Kimi was a real champion. We went back to our usual vet clinic and finally after each successive vet ruled out this and that, the last (and most experienced) vet agreed to treat for heart problems (which we'd suspected from the start).

For us, that was about a week of 24 hour nursing care - I rearranged the cage to be single level easy access and as comfortable as possible, and then Bear and I would feed Kimi by hand every few hours or so - because he would only take yoghurt, we tried mashing up banana in it... and then blending some muesli in as well, which he also took. We normally give our ratties a pre-dinner yoggieball treat every night, and a freshly cooked bit of corn on the cob with their hot dinners - they usually devour this before anything else*. Even while Kimi was ill, he fully expected the yoggie, although he'd just sortof hold it and then put it down... and once, he grabbed his bit of corn with almost normal enthusiasm and carried it away, but he didn't eat it and slept with it instead.

When the heart meds finally took effect and Kimi started coming round slowly, it could have been sooner but I was grateful no less. It's very distressing to watch your pet suffer and being only able to wait. It's very important to me that my ratties never suffer - Kimi had to, in order to rule out all the other possibilities before he got the right treatment, but in the case of Linus' tumour, for example, if it gets into his lungs or kidneys or other major organs, he is going to be in pain and we're going to have to stop it.

So anyway, that is why we didn't go back to Singapore... and the fact is, now that Kimi's stabilised and everyone else is too (we had one super extra drama night in that super drama week where Kimi was still ill and Linus had a lung infection relapse AND we rediscovered lice on Monty and Alfie - Bear almost gave up, or did, for about half an hour)... I still wouldn't feel comfortable leaving their care in the hands of others, plus I would worry So Much about them. It's so unfair that such amazingly bright and loving personalities with all their capacity for affection and humour and appetite for food and life and learning should live such short lives.


*Sometimes, they'll have chicken first if there is any, or hard boiled egg, and there was that one time Monty picked up a large prawn and proceeded to confound Bear by eating nearly all of it before he stopped... but otherwise, the corn is the definite favourite.