Tails’ Blography

So to follow on from my previous post, Wormy underwent an operation on Thursday.

She recently showed signs of illness (hunched up, fur all puffy), so on Monday I gave her some medication and plannned to take her to the vet on Tues.

Tues arrived and saw us both at the vet (ok ok, all five of us went to the vet – Wormy needed her cage buddies for support) and the vet checked her out. He suspected an enlarged spleen or a tumour so asked me to come in on Wed for an x-ray.

On Wednesday, I arrived, again with all four girls, and the vet mentioned he’d rather do a biopsy. He said we knew it was a lump, so the xray wouldnt help much. I agreed and left them with him and went to do some reports/work at a local coffee shop while I waited. 20 minutes later I got a call to come collect. I would get news on Thursday.

Thursday came and I got a call in the morning confirming cancerous lymphnodes in the spleen. The vet recommended either an op or medication to make her comfortable until The End. I chose op, no question about it. She had just recently turned two and was still otherwise healthy. I was also confident with the vet as they have performed successful ops on rats many times before. I was asked to bring her in as soon as possible so I did, this time sans my other three girls.

They scheduled her for 11am and at 11:30am I got a call to say the op was successful and she is in recovery. At 3:30pm I got another call to say she was awake and ready to go home. I collected her at 5pm and brought her home. The vet said her spleen was 60% tumour and would have ruptured (which is fatal) within the next few days. I’m so glad I took her in and everything was so prompt!!

This is when the trouble started. See, this Friday was a public holiday and most vets are closed, including mine. Wormy relentlessly tugged and pulled at her stitches and successfully pulled out two by the next morning. When I noticed at midnight on Thursday evening that she had removed one, exposing the secondary stitches beneath, I made the decision to stay awake the whole night until I could try find an open vet to fix the stitches. I literally stayed on the couch, focused on lifting her head whenever she started towards her stitches. This was the longest night of my life. I was so tired and frustrated, I hope never to have to go through that again. Poor Wormy got some very harsh words throughout the night. Finally, at 2.30am I phoned the After Hours clicic (read: vet that charges a fortune!) and asked their advice. They were honest in saying they dont have the medication required for rats but they agreed I could send them an image from my cellphone so they could see how bad the damage was. In the end, they couldnt help, so back I went to keeping Wormy from tearing out the rest of her stitches.

By 3am (or just before) I ended up calling my vet on his cellphone (which I got from his answering machine message), and he sleepily agreed to see her at 7am on the public holiday (I’m bringing him some chocolates or biltong or something next time!). So at 6:45am I was waiting outside his practise. Lo and behold, Wormy fell asleep in the car. Typical! I guess I should have just driven around all night. Sigh!

He opened up and I brought her in. In all of ten minutes he had her glued back up again and added three small skin staples and I was on my way. I tucked her into a clean cage and left her with Iso for the day. When I returned at 17:30, she had only removed one staple (but she had started on that on already before I left).

This morning, she is perked up a little more and all incisions are still closed (a little weep-stained though) and all staples still in tact (touch wood). She’s still eating only small amounts, but I’m keeping an eye on her and I think her apetite will grow soon. She’s loving the chocolate she’s been getting haha!

I also emailed my breeder to let her know about the op, and while I was doing so, I looked up some old photos of Wormy when she was still a baby. I thought I had to post them here

The vet bill thus far is about R1000, but my girls are worth every penny!

Wormy (in front) and the late Ramoth before I got them

Wormy in the cage after she was delivered

A typical Wormy face <3

Wormy sleeping behind my thighs

I havent posted in while, as some of my readers might have noticed (that is, if you havent left for greener blogs yet!). I’m not too sure why but I havent felt like blogging for some time now. I think I blogged about this a little while ago. I think maybe I put too much thought into my blogging, so from now on, my posts will probably be shorter and more concise. Actually, I blabber a lot, so I doubt it.

My latest news is that I resigned from my position at ASUS. The logistics of the position just didnt fit in with me. I wasnt too fond of working alone, and I think they need someone with a more business-orientated mind, rather than a hands on person like I am.

They were surprised when I resigned, but they were understanding. I felt bad because I was supposed to fly up to JHB this coming Tues, and plane tickets had already been booked, but I felt I needed to give them the option if they wanted me to come to JHB knowing I will be resigning afterwards or not. They chose for me not to come through, which I was relieved about (news follows about Wormy). I didnt want to go to JHB, do all this planning and strategising only to come back to CT and resign. That would’ve wasted everyone’s time. I do feel a lot lighter, though, as this job had started affecting other areas of my life. Anyway, now they’re on the lookout for someone new for Cape Town which I’ll be helping them with as much as I can until my last day on the 30th.

Gonna miss the bf who is going to JHB for rAge this year again

Some more news (and why I am relieved about not going to JHB) is about Wormy. Edit: after writing the Wormy-story, I felt it needed its own post, so click here for that post.

Meet Vignette and Iso, my two new rat babies! Their names took forever to choose but eventually these were the two names decided on. Both are photography related as I try go with themes relevant to my life at the current time of aquiring new babies, and I couldnt think of anything Asus related at this time.

So Iso was one of the first names that popped into my head, and I like it because it sounds nothing like a normal name. Iso was taken from ISO which is film speed in relation to photography. She’s a Burmese Self.

Next is Vignette. This is pronounced Vin-yet and relates to the dark (or white, in some gaudy cases) corners that one sees on photos, either done purposefully in post processing or done by a lens adapter or lens hood (usually on a wide angle lens).

Wirenth has not been as horrible to them as Orly was to her and Ramoth, but she’s doing her fair share of nipping and kicking which is difficult to watch, but is natural. Rule of thumb, no blood, no foul. However I do keep the spray bottle well filled and Wormy does get her fair share of spritzes. At the moment, if I have the all on the couch together, they’re fine but if I put the girls in Wormy’s house, she hunts them down and bites them. So now they’re all in the babies’ house together, which is not Wormy’s territory so she’s behaving…for now. At the moment, the worst she’s doing is giving me doe eyes to let her out of this cage thats “not big enough to swing a cat, mom!” Poor thing looks so claustrophobic.

Anyway, without further ado! Tons of pics!

Meet Vignette and Iso!

Iso – this pic rocks in high res!

Fishing for rats! I almost caught one!

Almost caught another!

Wormy showing em who’s Top Rat around here

Peeping over the couch: Vignette, Iso and Wirenth

It’s Iso!

It’s Vignette!

Later, when the girls were all tuckered out, this is where Iso thought was a nice place to sleep…in the food bowl!

And Wormy slept on the couch with me just behind my legs…

And then moved on to my waistline, legs a-danglin’

Behbeh rat feet!!

And finally, I gave em a chicken bone and I thought this was a very cute face to photograph…

So finally the day of my new babies’ arrival dawned upon us, and after a short wait this morning, they arrived at around 10:30!! After chatting to Ang of Wheatfields Rattery (now online!!), their breeder, I settled them into their temporary cage to wait out the day until they could come home with me (they were delivered to my office).

Of course, after spoiling them with morsels of almond and apple pieces, I took some photos!

And then for my mother’s gym halloween party, I made some “Spooky Witch Fingers” which tasted and looked great!! Just a basic butter cookie recipe, molded into fingers with almonds for the fingernails (with some red icing under the fingernails for “blood”). Apparently they were the hit of the party and people even took them home for their families!