Lost our sweet Olivia this morning, trying to process it all

[Truffolo]

Good boy Socks, such a sweet name it must be the other side of the coin, how many times I wished a pet of mine would have lived up to that point, but then what is asked of you is to treasure each moment and smile while you face a different reality compared to when they were young. I feel for you and I can only be sure that Socks knows how much he's loved.

Thank you ❤

 

[Davide]

How is Ginny today?

Hi @Wiebke,
Ginny is doing well, very lively and active, she's drinking a lot (on her own and encouraged by us), she had a urine test which was negative so it's only the sludge we're dealing with. She also seems to look for attention from us which is very sweet, poor baby. I know I neglected her a bit when Mia and Olivia were around, she must be starved for attention now.

Me and Martina talked yesterday and decided not to have the second check in a week with our vet, but to bring her straight to Simon in Northampton to have the second check and, if necessary, the flushing procedure on the same day. Thankfully they had availability on Monday so I'll take the day off, get on a taxi and bring Ginny there.
Part of me feels very good about doing this, part of me wished I did the same for Olivia in January or February when the problem was manageable.
But I keep telling myself it's not our fault, we were doing just what our vet told us to do (close to nothing), and that they told us many times the situation was not serious.
The person I spoke with on the phone in Northampton told me they very rarely have to get in there surgically, they regularly manage to flush even stones successfully in girls. At least I can look at Ginny's situation with a tiny, cautious bit of confidence now.

Aside from this, the situation in the house is a bit crazy we have 2 cages taking half the living room, the baby in the big cage with Ginny is out of control and very happy everytime Ginny does anything. The boy is INCREDIBLY confident, considering how young he is, he's only been here for 2 days and considering his past. He's already quite comfortable with us, eats food from our hands and waddles around like he owns the place. Martina is thinking of keeping the boy regardless, even if Ginny makes it and they don't bond.

Today both Ginny and the boy had floor time in separate moments, but they have definitely started to notice the other one's presence in the room, they act super curious around each other's cage. We also caught both of them one in front of the other biting the cage bars

As for us, I think the knowledge that ultimately we were badly mislead by the vet seem to have at least lifted the curtain of guilt and the what ifs around Olivia's final week. I'm very angry, but at least I'm not in a state of shock like yesterday, and I'll take everything at this stage.

Following one of your advices, this evening I bought a small plant to remember Olivia, to put in the living room that she loved so much, and keep a candle next to it. The part of me that is not angry at the vet's just wants to remember her peacefully.

I hope you're doing well yourself

 

[Davide]

The baby and the boy

 

[Wiebke]

Hi @Wiebke,
Ginny is doing well, very lively and active, she's drinking a lot (on her own and encouraged by us), she had a urine test which was negative so it's only the sludge we're dealing with. She also seems to look for attention from us which is very sweet, poor baby. I know I neglected her a bit when Mia and Olivia were around, she must be starved for attention now.

Me and Martina talked yesterday and decided not to have the second check in a week with our vet, but to bring her straight to Simon in Northampton to have the second check and, if necessary, the flushing procedure on the same day. Thankfully they had availability on Monday so I'll take the day off, get on a taxi and bring Ginny there.
Part of me feels very good about doing this, part of me wished I did the same for Olivia in January or February when the problem was manageable.
But I keep telling myself it's not our fault, we were doing just what our vet told us to do (close to nothing), and that they told us many times the situation was not serious.
The person I spoke with on the phone in Northampton told me they very rarely have to get in there surgically, they regularly manage to flush even stones successfully in girls. At least I can look at Ginny's situation with a tiny, cautious bit of confidence now.

Aside from this, the situation in the house is a bit crazy we have 2 cages taking half the living room, the baby in the big cage with Ginny is out of control and very happy everytime Ginny does anything. The boy is INCREDIBLY confident, considering how young he is, he's only been here for 2 days and considering his past. He's already quite comfortable with us, eats food from our hands and waddles around like he owns the place. Martina is thinking of keeping the boy regardless, even if Ginny makes it and they don't bond.

Today both Ginny and the boy had floor time in separate moments, but they have definitely started to notice the other one's presence in the room, they act super curious around each other's cage. We also caught both of them one in front of the other biting the cage bars

As for us, I think the knowledge that ultimately we were badly mislead by the vet seem to have at least lifted the curtain of guilt and the what ifs around Olivia's final week. I'm very angry, but at least I'm not in a state of shock like yesterday, and I'll take everything at this stage.

Following one of your advices, this evening I bought a small plant to remember Olivia, to put in the living room that she loved so much, and keep a candle next to it. The part of me that is not angry at the vet's just wants to remember her peacefully.

I hope you're doing well yourself

Good that you are taking Ginny to Northampton. My Cariad survived nearly two years with her bladder stone followed by constant sludge problem so she needed a number of flushes (and had an emergency spay as well). Please bring the baby with Ginny; she won't be fine on her own. Do have a name for her yet? But I am glad that Ginny is fine in herself and holding her weight and that the little one is settling in well and is taking her cues from Ginny now.

I would also recommend that you ask them for diet advice since - unlike with Cariad - your issue is diet based if both your girls had it at the same time.

Good that you are past the guilt trip. Vets are also only normal people and like we on the forum are dealing with all sorts of issues we are feeling out of our depth; they don't it get right all the time. It is very sad that Olivia didn't get a flush early on when it was still an option - but like I have mentioned before, flushes can go wrong very easily and if your vet has had a bed experience before, then they are in a rather difficult position.
It's very easy to switch your pain from yourself into blind anger at somebody else; but that doesn't necessarily help either side. Vets are one of the professions with the highest suicide rate because of that when something goes wrong.

The plant with the candle is a lovely idea. Olivia is in your thoughts and with you; and this visualises her presence. You can always light the candle if your pain gets too strong.

I had the feeling that your new boy has been making quite an impression.
Bar gnawing just means that 'I want to get at you and your territory' but it doesn't say 'I want to be friends with you', unfortunately. It is more territorial behaviour.

 

[Davide]

Hi @Wiebke, hope you are doing well today.

Yes, I'll ask Simon about the diet. I also opened a thread in the diet section of the forum, it doesn't look to me as we're doing anything clearly wrong but I'll wait for someone with expertise to chip in also, we haven't really changed anything in years aside from the brand of the hay, and never had these issues before Olivia. Could it be the hay, I wonder?

Ginny is doing well, again drinking a lot, gaining daily weight (tho the weight was not alarming to begin with), and it looks like she's enjoying herself.

About the anger, yeah I see your point, but the timing of Ginny's issue and the vastly different reaction we got from this other vet just holds a mirror on how Olivia's situation was handled, which is difficult to look away from. And it's not just about me and Marti, it's about how much unnecessary suffering Olivia had to go through for what I hope was only incompetence or undeciveness. Flushing or a different surgery could have gone wrong, sure, but what Olivia had to endure in the last 3-4 days was pure torture to see, and without a doubt incredibly painful for her. Maybe with enough time I'll have a better view of the big picture, and share some compassion with those vets too. It's not really something I'm ready for right now.

We haven't named the baby yet, normally we let the name come up almost naturally as they spend the first few days with us and we observe them, but with everything that's been going we haven't really found the "name" moment yet. Same goes for the boy, everything is very much up in the air with him, poor baby. It kind of feels like we're fostering them while we take care of Ginny, I guess that's ok. Never happened to us to be forced to approach new arrivals like this, but there's always a first.

So the bar gnawing is a bit discouraging, I'm still thinking of the bonding in the back of my mind, although obviously there are more obstacles to overcome before we can hopefully re-focus in that.

 

[CTWC]

Just saying hi