A Health and Rat Update

Hi all,

We've had a serious sickness of some sort come into our home and take the lives of four of our rats and make the rest of them very sick. It's been a very exhausting time trying to save the remaining rats and grieving over those who are gone. Daisy, Francis, Bindi and Oreo have passed on. On Thursday I pretty much collapsed from everything that had gone on and I haven't been back to normal yet. In fact, I've been getting worse.

Last night was a close call, but I managed to get through without an ER visit.

Fast forward to earlier in the week. I did go to the pain clinic and I got two nerve blocks for the pain in my pelvic/groin area. Two shots of lidocaine and steroids were given. The lidocaine was heavenly, but once it wore off I was back to where I started and haven't felt any improvement since. I got back in about a week for more shots.

Becca

The Departed:

Daisy



















Francis











Bindi
















Oreo (on the right)

Percival

Yes, I have a new rat. His name is Percival, he’s 4.5 weeks old and a beautiful specimen of a black hooded. His stripe evenly extends halfway down his tail. One half pink and one half black. And then his goolies…well…one is black and one is pink. But don’t tell him I told you that. He’s a sensitive little guy.

He is very sweet and affectionate, but also full of baby curiosity. He is such a happy-go-lucky guy and he makes me smile all the time.

Staci brought over two of my boys, Arnold and Walt, to come be Percival’s friends and they’ve been getting along great.

But Becca, you may be thinking, why this new rat when you can hardly care for the rats you have?

I like to think of myself as a seasoned rat owner (I’ve had rats non stop for 11 year) with good advice for all. The problem is, sometimes I don’t take my own advice. And sometimes I’m tired and out of it from my health problems and someone leaves me alone in PetCo.
Before I go any further I ask that no one preach to me. I know I know I know and I feel very guilty about my PetCo purchase already.

I asked to see Percival because the side of his face looked swollen and he was squinting his eye. It all looked very strange to me so I bought him and brought him home, getting down to research. I didn’t fine much to explain his Quasimoto face, so I took him into the vet. She thought that he probably got his eye scratched or hurt in someway and the rest was swelling. So now we’re treating the eye with a special cream and he is getting Baytril for his frequent sneezing.

I’m happy to have him here, though. He’s such a little joy. And I am just as happy to have two of my boys back with me. Arnold in particular has grown to be quite a porker. Do you know who else is happy that Percival is here? Amanda’s Apiro (Pirri). We can’t decide if she wants to mother him or eat him. Amanda is betting that she wants him with pesto sauce. On the other hand, Pirri was much comforted after poor Tula’s passing by my old rat Francis. They seemed to understand each other. Can you say play dates?

I haven’t got any pics of Percival yet (he’s fast!) but I have taken a video. I’ll get it uploaded soon and post it here so you can all see his cuteness.

Cue Flyleaf's Number One Hit

Okay, I guess most of my readers (here on Blogger anyway) are middle aged men and woman and they probably have no idea who Flyleaf is. Flyleaf is a band. Flyleaf is a really cool band and I like them very much. Sometimes, when I'm really not feeling well, their number one hit, "I'm So Sick" starts going through my head (much like "Everything Comes Down To Poo" from Scrubs goes through my head at the hospital a lot). Would anyone care to enlightened? Because I'm happy to post a music video for you.



Anyway, what I mean to say is, I'm so sick. Today has not been a good day. Yesterday wasn't all that great either, but yesterday didn't have me moaning like a baby. You know how when you have a really bad cold you feel like you have no choice but to moan to everyone you meet as if that will make it better? That's what I feel like today. Thank God for poor Rayne, huh? If she wasn't online to listen to me moan then my only other option would be to moan even more to you poor people in blogosphere or to moan to my Mom who has a cold right now and that's just wrong. You don't moan to someone who possibly feels as bad as you do. Unless it's a bonding thing, like where Rayne and I might talk about how each of us wants to eat breakfast but we're too nauseous.

There goes to alarm for me to take my antibiotic out of the refrigerator. We are allowed to let it sit for awhile so I don't get chill veins. Brr, I hate that. Either this antibiotics side effects are making me feel worse or I actually am worse and the antibiotic is not doing its job. If the latter is true then I'm off to Omaha for surgery. That's pretty much the last thing I want to do with my life right now. All I can say is they had better give me a private room. I will not, I repeat, will not go through the Andrea thing again. It's just not worth it.

In other news, we have a new rat! Her name is Annabel and we got her to be a younger playmate for Cupcake. They of course got on famously and Annabel has now joined the young group: Daisy, Lil' Staci and Cupcake. Cuppers is getting a nice taste of her own medicine having this younger rat around. Now someone is waking her up by jumping up and down on top of her.

I don't have any pictures taken yet, but you can see Annabel's old Petfinder profile here.

Well, I'm going to take some more narcotics and start getting ready to hook myself up to the IV pump. Maybe I'll think of something more cheerful to blog about and come back later.

Rattie Cuteness

I'd also like to add that...



Here's a video of my boys!!!



They're staying with my friend Staci over at Capital City Rat Rescue right now since I can't take care of all 15 of my rat right now.



Also, Here's a picture of my rat Mabel's behind (she's also with Staci). She's a rather elderly rat.

On a seperate and unrelated note, I have a Shelfari account now: http://www.shelfari.com/becca32

Fireworks Shopping

Today is the third of July. Ya’ll know what that means, right? Fireworks shopping!!! I am, obviously, very excited about this. Last year was the first year my sister and I had cars and credit cards of our own so, consequently, it was the first year we drove down to the fireworks stand and went crazy buying everything that looked cool and relatively tame. Our mom gets a big thrill our of fireworks. And when I say “big thrill” I mean that every time so much as a firecracker goes of she screams and clutches her heart as if threatening to have a coronary. She appreciates the colors and lights but that’s about it. So you can understand my and Natalie’s excitement when we got to pick out and set off almost any firework we wanted to. And this year, we get to do it all over again. So, yeah, I’m excited, not to mention fireworks shopping being half the fun.
On a separate and unrelated note, I think everyone should watch this hedgehog eat a carrot:




On the health side of things I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my ovarian cyst removal surgery has been scheduled! It’s for the seventeenth of this month and I’m getting done in Lincoln because this is where my gynecologist is. The surgery can be done laproscopically so the recovery time should be short. Most importantly I won’t be in almost constant pain from the cysts. I’m counting down the days.
The bad news is that the people at the med center called me yesterday and said they’d forgotten to schedule a crucial appointment during my evaluation. Wednesday is when all the doctors get together and decide who should get put on the transplant list and, apparently, when they discussed me the doctors said, “We can’t put this girl on the list yet because we don’t have all the information we need.” This means I have to go back to Omaha, see a shrink and then wait until next Wednesday for the doctors to talk about me again. I’ve already had to wait one extra week to be put on the transplant list because last Wednesday my appointments went too late for them to get all the test results to the doctors. My appointments went late because, get this, they (whoever “they” are) made a mistake with my schedule. Yeah. So, no one is very happy about this, especially my mother. I don’t get riled up so easily (it probably has something to do with the medication that keeps my blood pressure low and pain drugs).
And now for another cute break. This is my rat, Lil’ Staci sleeping in a ball:

And then, "Mom!":

Cupcake was inspired and decided to curl up as well:

Nakies

It’s only 5 o’clock and already today has been a weird, sad and eventful day. This morning Staci (of Capital City Rat Rescue) brought my rat Nakies over for a visit and a tooth trimming. Staci has been caring for Nakies and my rat Mabel for about a month now since both girls are old rats and needed special care that I didn’t have the health to give them.
I knew that Nakies had been declining, but when I saw her this morning I was hit by how bad she’d gotten. Not that Staci wasn’t taking good care of her. She was giving my rats the best care available. But Nakies was old, there was no denying that. My mom decided that she should be kept here to die at home. It was evident Nakies wasn’t going to be around that much longer.
Staci also brought me…Toys! Becca is gonna have some fun this 4th of July, that’s for sure. I got sidewalk chalk, bubbles, silly string, some wooden Brain Benders, one of those awesome 20 questions balls, an adorable guinea pig beanie baby and a hilarious card of people doing a fashion show of hospital gowns. Everyone’s butts are hanging out, of course and the front says, “Next…Thelma strolls the surgery floor with confidence in this ‘sassy’ bile green evening gown.” The inside says, “Hope to see your sassy butt out of bed real soon.” It’s great.
Staci was sent off with all my boy rats. I can’t care for all of my rats right now and their cage was posing a particular challenge for me. The boys were very excited about all of this, except for Luke, my old boy. He all of sudden seemed weak and sick. Staci knew to keep an eye on him since he is very elderly, so she promised me to keep a very close eye on him from now on. Apparently, when Staci got the boys back to her house, Luke wasn’t doing so well. He’s very lethargic and can’t walk very well, possible signs of a previous stroke. Luke is going to be getting some special care and antibiotics, but he may not be around that long.
When Nakies first came this morning I could tell that, even though she wasn’t doing so hot, she was still Nakies. Throughout the next few hours she seemed to decline very rapidly and the Nakies we knew began to disappear. Mid afternoon, Nakies passed away while my mom was holding her. We think she held on until she could see her family again. A lot of rats seem to choose how they want to die. Some wait until their owners are gone and some hang on until their people can be there with them. We’re glad we were able to be with Nakies and she could be home.
Nakies was the smartest rats I’ve ever met. And I’ve owned rats for 11 years now. She did a lot of “bad” things and outsmarted me many times, but she endeared herself to our family and our friends many times over. We were truly blessed to have such a lively rat in our lives. She will be greatly missed.

Anatomy of a hoodie

Just thought I'd throw in a pic of a nook in our backyard for effect.

Well, the ulcerative colitis has calmed down a little. But I'm still so tired. The tiredness that seems to make my heart feel like lead and my lungs feel cramped. My appetite has gone from bad to worse. Back to a diet of nutritional shakes for me! Apparently I've lost, like, 10 lbs. in just a few months, but it certainly doesn't show. Probably has something to do with my liver being the size of Texas and my ovaries being the size of...um....a state slightly smaller than Texas. Anyway, I'm complaining, so I'll shut up.

I did go to the mall with my sister. We only went to a couple stores, so it wasn't a major feat or anything. And I got the coolest hoodie ever. It's all neon colored on a black background and it makes you look like you've just stepped in front of an x-ray because it's got bones on it! As in, it corresponds to the bones in your body. Rib cage on the front, arm bones on the side, etc. Even the hood has a skull. It reminds me of my favorite t-shirt as a kid which was more of the same. When you grow up in the hospital you develop a deep affection for anatomy. The hoodie makes me happy since it reminds me of my childhood.

Shirley, our rat, has to have yet another surgery. In just a week she's sprouted a tumor near her groin which is effecting her bladder. She's getting the tumor removed tomorrow morning, so that's good. Poor Shirley has already been through two tumor removals and is getting over an infection from her last surgery, which was about 2 weeks ago.

We're in the process of moving my rats to Capital City Rat Rescue to live with Staci until I'm healthy enough to take care of them again. Two of my rats are already there. Once I rat starts requiring extra care, it has to be moved to Staci's since I can't give it the care it needs. And boy does Staci spoil my rats!

Speaking of rats, I got this message on YouTube today (where I post videos of my rattie clan):

Subject: RATS!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOUR RATS AND THEY ARE SO CUTE I HAVE 2 RATS AND LOVE THEM I AM A BIG FAN OF YOUR RATS AND A BIG FAN OF YOU TOO SO GOOD VIDEOS PLZ SEND MESSAGE TO ME THANKS BUT I DONT HAVE ANY VIDEOS RIGHT BUT WILL SOON THANKS SEND A MESSAGE SAYING YOU GOT IT THANKS

Um, someone needs to give this person a chill pill. I'm a little creeped out. I don't think I'll reply. It sounds like they're as obsessed with me as they are with my rats. I once had someone on YouTube tell me they liked the sound of my voice. Is it just me or does that seem odd?

Anyway, it's raining. I'm sleepy, but I doubt I'll be able to sleep for awhile. Think I'll spend a little more time online and then read my novel. Oh, and feed the rats, of course!

God sped

Well, I've been hard at work with school and writing The Master Painter. Huge props to my friend Becky for being the editor of my dreams. As they say, to write is human, to edit is divine. With Becky's help this story is coming together and I hope to finish it in about a week.
In rodent news, we have a new mouse named Twinkle and my dear Biscuit died. Biscuit wasn't my rat, but a friend's. Last time I saw him he was just a tiny baby and he would be almost a year old now.
I saw a licence plate the other day that read "GOD SPED". I think it was supposed to say 'God speed' but all it ended up doing was accusing God of not obeying traffic laws. Mildly humorous.
So it's a Sabbath afternoon and I'm bored out of my socks. I should really go take a shower or at least change clothes since I have the Slobber of the Northside Church Babies all over me.
Nakies is up for her afternoon constitutional. She says hi. I love my Nakies...:-)