Orion
Junior Guinea Pig
This isn’t the update I wanted to make. This is Hams owner, who I posted about earlier this week. But this isn’t about Ham, it’s about his bar buddy Ed. Ed has always been a quiet, sweet guy. Doesn’t love being held. But always gives kisses. Chews on his bars instead of making sounds (I know, so bad for his teeth, but I could never get him to stop no matter what I tried). Especially in his old age (7), he’s been gentle and quiet. We’ve had a rough few months with him and his brothers health. In and out of the vet constantly. Every time, the dr gives us three options: euthanasia, do one test/med and hope it fixes things, or spend thousands upon thousands doing every little thing because we can never fully pinpoint his symptoms.
Ed has always been a jumper. Meaning, when I try to put him back in his enclosure he tries to leap out of my hands. He managed to earlier this week, and he landed weird. It wasn’t that high of a jump, maybe 5 inches? But like I said, he landed weird. The next day I noticed his toe was way further away from his other ones than usual. I was looking because he made a noise that sounded like pain when I picked him up for his morning meds. I don’t know if it’s broken, but I scheduled a vet appointment because I knew he needed to get looked at and maybe put on some pain meds. I feel unbelievably guilty for it. I try to hold onto him, but he is SO insistent on reaching the ground faster than I can manage to set him down. He’s my baby and it it’s killing me knowing something happened that could have been prevented.
But that’s the least of his problems right now. He was eating less after, which I attributed to pain, but it just kept escalating until last night, when he began refusing critical care too. The only thing I can get him to eat consistently is hay seed heads and carrots. I put critical care on the carrot and have been tricking him into eating it, which is helpful, but he’s not eating nearly enough to sustain himself. I’m calling the vet as soon as they open to see if they have an opening and if not I’m doing an emergency appointment. I stayed up all night monitoring him and feeding him as often as I could and as much as he’d allow. I feel awful. Having elderly guinea pigs is crushing me. I love them so much. Ed is the sweetest boy and I hate to see him not happy. We’re having more bad days than good right now. Same for Ham. It seems to me like they are declining very similarly. I think it’s sweet that it seems they’re going together. But that only makes it more painful for me. I’m trying to hold it together, but these boys are what hold me together. I’m terrified for this appointment because I know that one of these times I’ll have to make a very hard decision.
Ed has always been a jumper. Meaning, when I try to put him back in his enclosure he tries to leap out of my hands. He managed to earlier this week, and he landed weird. It wasn’t that high of a jump, maybe 5 inches? But like I said, he landed weird. The next day I noticed his toe was way further away from his other ones than usual. I was looking because he made a noise that sounded like pain when I picked him up for his morning meds. I don’t know if it’s broken, but I scheduled a vet appointment because I knew he needed to get looked at and maybe put on some pain meds. I feel unbelievably guilty for it. I try to hold onto him, but he is SO insistent on reaching the ground faster than I can manage to set him down. He’s my baby and it it’s killing me knowing something happened that could have been prevented.
But that’s the least of his problems right now. He was eating less after, which I attributed to pain, but it just kept escalating until last night, when he began refusing critical care too. The only thing I can get him to eat consistently is hay seed heads and carrots. I put critical care on the carrot and have been tricking him into eating it, which is helpful, but he’s not eating nearly enough to sustain himself. I’m calling the vet as soon as they open to see if they have an opening and if not I’m doing an emergency appointment. I stayed up all night monitoring him and feeding him as often as I could and as much as he’d allow. I feel awful. Having elderly guinea pigs is crushing me. I love them so much. Ed is the sweetest boy and I hate to see him not happy. We’re having more bad days than good right now. Same for Ham. It seems to me like they are declining very similarly. I think it’s sweet that it seems they’re going together. But that only makes it more painful for me. I’m trying to hold it together, but these boys are what hold me together. I’m terrified for this appointment because I know that one of these times I’ll have to make a very hard decision.