Poor Hywel's dental root abscess returned very suddenly on the day before my husband had surgery and the Maddocks went on holiday; the timing couldn't have been worse!
Thankfully, I could get an emergency evening slot at a small branch of my local vets and could get Hywel's file transferred to the branch just about in time and after some frantic phone calls between three clinics. Hywel's abscess promptly burst when the vet examined him.
Hywel responded well initially and was able to keep his weight without any syringe top-up, even tough it took me several days to get hold of the Zithromax as nobody had it in stock locally and he had to do with a less strong antibiotic until then.
Unfortunately, he has developed a secondary large abscess under his chin over the last weekend and needed some rather complicated surgery involving lancing and marsupialising (i.e. stitching open) the abscess, exctracting the shards of his regrown incisor (which is the likely cause of his new abscess) and burr his somewhat overgrown teeth at the Cat&Rabbit Clinic yesterday wich was as early as I could book him last week. We picked him up today looking rather sorry for himself!
Because of the size and depth of the abscess, Hywel is looking at about a month for his abscess to heal slowly from the inside out if all goes well. I have to flush it out with saline solution once or (initially) twice daily and keep the hole open for as long as possible, ideally several days after the last bit of pus has come out.
I am sure that poor Hywel is going to REALLY hate me once I have to start and remove the newly formed scab each time, which is rather painful, but we have to push through that to save his life. He is now 6 years old.
You can see the large dent in his rather swollen and shaven dewlap where the abscess was, compared to a picture I took of him 6 days ago just before the new abscess started coming up.
Hywel last week
At the same time I got the news that the sudden recent weight gain of about 100g of my nearly 8 year old lady Nerys (never good news in old guinea pigs!) is sadly not caused by something that can be patched up at least temporarily, like a fluid build-up in the body due to heart insuffiency or a quickly growing ovarian cyst, but the problem is located in the adrenal gland/kidney area and is in any case not something that is easily remedied without lots of scans, tests and potentially rather pioneering surgery - if it is operable in the first place!
Considering that Nerys is the equivalent of a 90 year old, I have had to make the gutting decision to let her live out her life for as long as she is OK in herself and to call it shots when she starts suffering noticeably. Nerys is the last of my original Tribe piggies and has been with me longest of all my adult piggies, so she is rather special to me. Her 7th Gotcha Day (i.e. adoption anniversary) is on the 4th May.
Yesterday was definitely NOT a great day!
Nerys
Thankfully, I could get an emergency evening slot at a small branch of my local vets and could get Hywel's file transferred to the branch just about in time and after some frantic phone calls between three clinics. Hywel's abscess promptly burst when the vet examined him.
Hywel responded well initially and was able to keep his weight without any syringe top-up, even tough it took me several days to get hold of the Zithromax as nobody had it in stock locally and he had to do with a less strong antibiotic until then.
Unfortunately, he has developed a secondary large abscess under his chin over the last weekend and needed some rather complicated surgery involving lancing and marsupialising (i.e. stitching open) the abscess, exctracting the shards of his regrown incisor (which is the likely cause of his new abscess) and burr his somewhat overgrown teeth at the Cat&Rabbit Clinic yesterday wich was as early as I could book him last week. We picked him up today looking rather sorry for himself!
Because of the size and depth of the abscess, Hywel is looking at about a month for his abscess to heal slowly from the inside out if all goes well. I have to flush it out with saline solution once or (initially) twice daily and keep the hole open for as long as possible, ideally several days after the last bit of pus has come out.
I am sure that poor Hywel is going to REALLY hate me once I have to start and remove the newly formed scab each time, which is rather painful, but we have to push through that to save his life. He is now 6 years old.
You can see the large dent in his rather swollen and shaven dewlap where the abscess was, compared to a picture I took of him 6 days ago just before the new abscess started coming up.
Hywel last week
At the same time I got the news that the sudden recent weight gain of about 100g of my nearly 8 year old lady Nerys (never good news in old guinea pigs!) is sadly not caused by something that can be patched up at least temporarily, like a fluid build-up in the body due to heart insuffiency or a quickly growing ovarian cyst, but the problem is located in the adrenal gland/kidney area and is in any case not something that is easily remedied without lots of scans, tests and potentially rather pioneering surgery - if it is operable in the first place!
Considering that Nerys is the equivalent of a 90 year old, I have had to make the gutting decision to let her live out her life for as long as she is OK in herself and to call it shots when she starts suffering noticeably. Nerys is the last of my original Tribe piggies and has been with me longest of all my adult piggies, so she is rather special to me. Her 7th Gotcha Day (i.e. adoption anniversary) is on the 4th May.
Yesterday was definitely NOT a great day!
Nerys
