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Ups and Downs
10 years ago
General
Been another long period of relative inactivity on here for me - life's been not far short of chaotic lately, though a bit of peace is finally on the horizon.
Work's been ridiculous, with a few 50-60hr weeks in a row - they're necessary, but exhausting, and much as the payslip is nice, I'll be glad to see the end of them. We're closing out an 8-month project, and we've done well so far - the extra hours are making sure we don't fall at the final hurdles!
Things have also been a little mixed on the home front - I make no secret of how much I love my pet rats, and we've had a torrid time of things with them recently. Over the space of five days, three of them passed away from various causes, and it's no exaggeration when I say that all of us in the flat were heartbroken over each individual one.
Tobio, our 18 month-old boy, had a zymbals gland tumour, which - in a nutshell - is an inoperable facial tumour that very quickly leads to poor quality of life. You can find more information here (that page is fine, but the pages it links to contain graphic images), but the short version is that it very quickly tends to result in needing to euthanise the rat - in Tobio's case, it was two weeks from detection to being put to sleep, which is no time at all.
Shortly after that, our tiny 8 month-old girl Kido developed rapid-onset pneumonia, and in the space of 39hrs went from pinging happily around the cage to death. We got her to the vet's within the first 12hrs and gave her a steroid injection and antibiotics, but she was just too small to fight it off. There was nothing more that could be done, so while it was just her time to go... 8 months just shouldn't be any pet's time.
In between those two, my special old lady Rin also passed away. She was much older - approaching 3yrs - but despite being blind and having weak back legs, she was still stomping around and rampaging about the living room like she hadn't a care in the world. We often joked that she might die tomorrow, in a year, or never, but it really did feel like that - she was a little warrior, tough as old boots and seemingly believing herself to be immortal, but she was the sweetest old lady you could ask for. So when she suddenly had a stroke, followed by a seizure that finished her off... I still don't think her passing has quite settled in. Hers has definitely hit me the hardest of the three - she's one of those special pets you never forget.
(I also have to give a shout out to
neonpossum for all the hard work he put in to nursing Kido during her illness, literally waking up every two hours check on/feed/water her. He was an absolute saint, and I only wish the outcome had been what his efforts deserved...)
There have been some positives, though. As any rat owner can tell you, rats need to be kept in social groups, and we found ourselves left with two boys in one cage and two girls in another, and with the risk of a rat being left on their own if anyone else passed suddenly, we set out to urgently find some newbies. We therefore now have two new boys (Badger and Casper) and two new girls (Freya and Astrid) living with us, and they're absolute sweethearts. They'll never replace those we've lost, but they're bright and beautiful sparks in their own right, and are in the process of settling in with their new cagemates now. As things progress, I'll be sure to put up pictures of them!
I'll put up some pictures of those we've lost in memoriam soon, as well as a commission I took out recently, and hopefully I'll get back into some semblance of normal activity on here soon~
Hope all my followers are doing well in their lives! ♥ (And if you made it this far, congratulations!)
Work's been ridiculous, with a few 50-60hr weeks in a row - they're necessary, but exhausting, and much as the payslip is nice, I'll be glad to see the end of them. We're closing out an 8-month project, and we've done well so far - the extra hours are making sure we don't fall at the final hurdles!
Things have also been a little mixed on the home front - I make no secret of how much I love my pet rats, and we've had a torrid time of things with them recently. Over the space of five days, three of them passed away from various causes, and it's no exaggeration when I say that all of us in the flat were heartbroken over each individual one.
Tobio, our 18 month-old boy, had a zymbals gland tumour, which - in a nutshell - is an inoperable facial tumour that very quickly leads to poor quality of life. You can find more information here (that page is fine, but the pages it links to contain graphic images), but the short version is that it very quickly tends to result in needing to euthanise the rat - in Tobio's case, it was two weeks from detection to being put to sleep, which is no time at all.
Shortly after that, our tiny 8 month-old girl Kido developed rapid-onset pneumonia, and in the space of 39hrs went from pinging happily around the cage to death. We got her to the vet's within the first 12hrs and gave her a steroid injection and antibiotics, but she was just too small to fight it off. There was nothing more that could be done, so while it was just her time to go... 8 months just shouldn't be any pet's time.
In between those two, my special old lady Rin also passed away. She was much older - approaching 3yrs - but despite being blind and having weak back legs, she was still stomping around and rampaging about the living room like she hadn't a care in the world. We often joked that she might die tomorrow, in a year, or never, but it really did feel like that - she was a little warrior, tough as old boots and seemingly believing herself to be immortal, but she was the sweetest old lady you could ask for. So when she suddenly had a stroke, followed by a seizure that finished her off... I still don't think her passing has quite settled in. Hers has definitely hit me the hardest of the three - she's one of those special pets you never forget.
(I also have to give a shout out to
neonpossum for all the hard work he put in to nursing Kido during her illness, literally waking up every two hours check on/feed/water her. He was an absolute saint, and I only wish the outcome had been what his efforts deserved...)There have been some positives, though. As any rat owner can tell you, rats need to be kept in social groups, and we found ourselves left with two boys in one cage and two girls in another, and with the risk of a rat being left on their own if anyone else passed suddenly, we set out to urgently find some newbies. We therefore now have two new boys (Badger and Casper) and two new girls (Freya and Astrid) living with us, and they're absolute sweethearts. They'll never replace those we've lost, but they're bright and beautiful sparks in their own right, and are in the process of settling in with their new cagemates now. As things progress, I'll be sure to put up pictures of them!
I'll put up some pictures of those we've lost in memoriam soon, as well as a commission I took out recently, and hopefully I'll get back into some semblance of normal activity on here soon~
Hope all my followers are doing well in their lives! ♥ (And if you made it this far, congratulations!)
I know there are new memories to be made with the newbies, but god I miss Rin throwing herself off the sofa and Kido beating Yuuto and Yachi up and Toby perching on his shelf just judging us (and begging for food)
Hugs to you too ♥