Fur and Fin updates

[derekl_1963]

I mentioned this to a few last night at fighter practice, so I thought I should bring the story up-to-date here...

Saturday evening we noticed Missy (our hamster) was sleeping oddly and moving as if it were painful. When Brenda tried to clean her cage, she wouldn't get into her ball. (Normally she practically leaps into it.) There being little we could do we made her as comfortable as we could and waited until morning. Sunday morning she was moving even more slowly and shaking like she was having a minor seizure. She hadn't touched her food or water. When I tried to give her one of favorite treats, she showed no interest whatsoever. She is nearly two years old (turning the corner into 'senior citizen' in hamster years), but had shown no previous signs of illness or distress. When we put her in a box to take her to the vet it was heartbreaking to watch a normally (hyper)active and inquisitive little ham just sit there with her eyes half closed and shake.

The vet cautioned us about her advancing age, and prescribed some antibiotics and hand feeding.

The rest of Sunday was very long - feeding her formula the vet gave us and watering her every two hours by hand. By evening however, she was shaking less and starting to fight us when we tried to feed her.

It's been nothing but slow improvement since then... Monday morning we found that she had eaten and drank some water (which meant we could stop the hand feeding), and by evening the shaking had stopped though she was still moving slowly. We got up Tuesday and found (as is her habit) that she'd moved the little igloo she sleeps in and almost completely rearranged the bedding in her cage. In the evening she even had the energy to get up on the shelf in her cage and run on her wheel just a little bit. We put her ball in her cage and she leapt right into it. (Though we didn't leave her in nearly as long as usual. She needs exercise, but she also needs her rest.)

When we got up this morning, we found her digging through her food dish looking for her favorite bits, and when she heard activity in the kitchen, she went into her "waiting for a treat" routine. (Watching the door of her cage *very* intently.)

We've got to finish the course of antibiotics (which involves me getting up at six in the morning to help Brenda give them to her) but the corner has decidedly been turned and she's practically back to normal.

Kudos to Dr Lehman and her staff down at the 'All Creatures' animal hospital down in Gorst. Despite already being swamped with appointments and emergencies, she squeezed us in almost immediately once she realized they were the only vets that took small rodents and were open. She handled little Missy with great care and attention, took us seriously, and took great care to make sure we understood the feeding and medicating procedures.

On the fin front, my ladies (my angelfish) seemed very lethargic this morning. As the air pumps have been putting out less and less over the last few weeks (despite changing the filter and adjusting the output) I went up to Petsmart and bought and installed new pumps (the old ones are nearly five years old), and they seem much better already. I'm not really happy with the new pumps though, as they're louder than the old and cannot be adjusted.