piggyme234
Adult Guinea Pig
My life as a piggy slave hasn't been very smooth sailing this last year. About a year ago Max fell ill, he had a number of seizures, arthritis and teeth problems. Every time I thought it was the end he would bounce back. One night, when he had his first seizure, I stayed up all night with him cuddling him and crying on him truly believing that any second he was going to go. By the time I got to the vet in the morning he was almost totally fine. Around the same time I reported a historic case, from when I was a teenager, to the police which has been under investigation ever since. Almost immediately after that had got started my mother in law was diagnosed with bowel cancer which caused lots of stress at home with my husband being quite distant and upset.
By October Max was really starting to fade and I was totally knackered from nursing him and dealing with all the other stuff. In the end I asked if he could go to TEAS just to stay for a bit, still hoping that he would bounce back. He went downhill quite quickly in spite of Debbie's best efforts and was only there for a week before we had to make the decision to let him go. I am glad he spent his last week being looked after so well and will always be grateful to Debbie @furryfriends (TEAS) for that.
In November my mother in law was recovering from surgery and doing well and my husband and I went away to Norway for a week and left all 11 piggies in capable hands. Elizabeth and her friend went to my sister as she was being treated for what we thought was a UTI and the rest were cared for at home by a friend. One evening my friend went to see to them and found Ava collapsed, he rushed her to the vet who said there was nothing he could do for her. I felt so hopeless standing in the snow, by a fjord, miles away from home, unable to assess Ava myself and knowing it was not my regular vet that I trusted as he wasn't working that day. I had no other option than to trust the vet and let her go. I couldn't even say goodbye and bury her myself and had to guide my sister and my friend where to bury her in the garden over the phone.
After we returned home Elizabeth was still not improving so just before Christmas the vet wanted to x-ray her to see if it was a bladder stone. What he found was an enlarged heart as well as sediment in the bladder. She was immediately put of heart meds which steadily increased as her heart failure started to become symptomatic.
A month ago Toby out of the blue stopped eating, his weight plummeted and his front teeth within a week became noticeably wonky. He had recently moved hutches to the larger of my three so that he and his wifey, Pippa, could live next to the little girls I am introducing them to and he had stopped biting the wire which up to that point he had always done. I do wonder if chewing the bars, as well as probably damaging his teeth, was actually by that point keeping them from getting too bad. We then took a rather urgent trip to Northampton to see Simon the vet and get his teeth sorted before the vets all went off on their Easter holidays for two weeks.
As Toby was still struggling to eat after having his teeth done and Elizabeth was going through a rough patch and also not eating properly, I was starting one of the busiest few weeks in our work calendar. I work in a church and several times a year, especially Christmas and Easter, we do huge events for families in our community and had 1500 people due to come to our activities over the two weeks of the school holidays. On the Thursday, the first day of the Easter events Neve became ill, she was treated for mild bloat and appeared to be on the mend. On the Friday evening after she'd had her medicine, a cuddle and a bit of a snack I went to check on her and she had died. The next morning I was planning to get up early with time to bury her before I had to be at work at 9. Just before 9 my sister in law, who I work with, sent me an email of the guest list that needed formatting by 10, I told her I would do it from home and send it back to her in time then come in. At half past 9 one of my colleagues rang to ask how I was getting on with the list as they would need it soon. I started crying and explained about Neve and how I hadn't managed to get out of bed yet. I did then get up and sort the list before leaving Neve wrapped up and getting into work late. I do have a wonderful group of people around me who are very supportive and that does include my husband even though we had some hard times when his mum was really sick.
After losing Neve, while battling to get food into Toby and noticing increasingly large lymph nodes on Elizabeth I thought very seriously for the first time in my entire life that maybe I wouldn't get any more piggies for a while. I love them to bits but this last year has been horrible. I have the room for 12, to be honest my big hutches are so big I could probably fit more but 12 has always been the magic number. I feel like if I have space then I should fill it so that the rescues can then make room for more needy pigs and I feel guilty about the idea of giving less needy pigs a home but at the moment we are spending £44 every 10 days on just 2 of Elizabeth's 4 medications, last week I stocked up for 2 weeks and spent £130. Toby cost nearly £100 plus a full day of driving and the petrol just for one dentist appointment and needs to go back in the next week or two. The idea of saving for decorating the house or redesigning the hutches is just nowhere on the horizon at the moment.
At the moment Toby is doing really well, he is eating on his own and keeping his teeth looking straight. The thickened one at the front that was causing the problem is nowhere near as bad as it was. I hope that when we go back for the check up it will be ok or it won't at least need much work. My mother in law has finished all her treatments and is back at work, just waiting for the last test results to hopefully give her the all clear.
Elizabeth is a little darling, she now also has what we think is lymphoma and the vet is astonished with how well she is doing all things considered. She has some fluid build up in her skin but not in her lungs, her lymph nodes are huge, she struggles to clean her bum and eat her sticky poops so needs help with keeping clean, she is starting to have some issues with her teeth so will probably be accompanying Toby on his next visit to Northampton but even with all that she shouts for her food as best she can and she takes her medicine so well. She is so clearly not ready to give up yet so I have to do everything possible to make life better for her.
It is hard knowing that she probably doesn't have long, every time I make up her meds I wonder if I have just spent all that time splitting, crushing and mixing tablets for nothing if she might have died since I last saw her as her heart could just give out at any second. I feel it's wrong to check she is still there before making up the meds so I just hope and she is always there waiting to take them like a good little pig and get some alone time with some snacks. Since she has to have her meds 3 times a day she comes to work with me now. Her and Jemima have their own little set up at church in one of the spare rooms we don't use much. They come in almost every day with me apart from Sunday when I am home before she needs her afternoon meds. Everyone has fallen for her and it will be doubly sad when something does happen to her as I will have to tell so many people who will be sad to lose her.
I really do admire people who run rescues, hats off to you if you do, I can't imagine having all this on such a larger scale with piggies coming to you in the states that some people let them get to.
Thanks for taking the time to get to the bottom of my rambling, I think I just needed to write it all down and get it out. I have had a bad day liaising with the officer in charge of my case today, I had tried to explain to him about me having Autism and what that means for me to feel the need for information and be updated regularly and I don't think he got it.
Anywho, nearly 4am really should go to bed now.
By October Max was really starting to fade and I was totally knackered from nursing him and dealing with all the other stuff. In the end I asked if he could go to TEAS just to stay for a bit, still hoping that he would bounce back. He went downhill quite quickly in spite of Debbie's best efforts and was only there for a week before we had to make the decision to let him go. I am glad he spent his last week being looked after so well and will always be grateful to Debbie @furryfriends (TEAS) for that.
In November my mother in law was recovering from surgery and doing well and my husband and I went away to Norway for a week and left all 11 piggies in capable hands. Elizabeth and her friend went to my sister as she was being treated for what we thought was a UTI and the rest were cared for at home by a friend. One evening my friend went to see to them and found Ava collapsed, he rushed her to the vet who said there was nothing he could do for her. I felt so hopeless standing in the snow, by a fjord, miles away from home, unable to assess Ava myself and knowing it was not my regular vet that I trusted as he wasn't working that day. I had no other option than to trust the vet and let her go. I couldn't even say goodbye and bury her myself and had to guide my sister and my friend where to bury her in the garden over the phone.
After we returned home Elizabeth was still not improving so just before Christmas the vet wanted to x-ray her to see if it was a bladder stone. What he found was an enlarged heart as well as sediment in the bladder. She was immediately put of heart meds which steadily increased as her heart failure started to become symptomatic.
A month ago Toby out of the blue stopped eating, his weight plummeted and his front teeth within a week became noticeably wonky. He had recently moved hutches to the larger of my three so that he and his wifey, Pippa, could live next to the little girls I am introducing them to and he had stopped biting the wire which up to that point he had always done. I do wonder if chewing the bars, as well as probably damaging his teeth, was actually by that point keeping them from getting too bad. We then took a rather urgent trip to Northampton to see Simon the vet and get his teeth sorted before the vets all went off on their Easter holidays for two weeks.
As Toby was still struggling to eat after having his teeth done and Elizabeth was going through a rough patch and also not eating properly, I was starting one of the busiest few weeks in our work calendar. I work in a church and several times a year, especially Christmas and Easter, we do huge events for families in our community and had 1500 people due to come to our activities over the two weeks of the school holidays. On the Thursday, the first day of the Easter events Neve became ill, she was treated for mild bloat and appeared to be on the mend. On the Friday evening after she'd had her medicine, a cuddle and a bit of a snack I went to check on her and she had died. The next morning I was planning to get up early with time to bury her before I had to be at work at 9. Just before 9 my sister in law, who I work with, sent me an email of the guest list that needed formatting by 10, I told her I would do it from home and send it back to her in time then come in. At half past 9 one of my colleagues rang to ask how I was getting on with the list as they would need it soon. I started crying and explained about Neve and how I hadn't managed to get out of bed yet. I did then get up and sort the list before leaving Neve wrapped up and getting into work late. I do have a wonderful group of people around me who are very supportive and that does include my husband even though we had some hard times when his mum was really sick.
After losing Neve, while battling to get food into Toby and noticing increasingly large lymph nodes on Elizabeth I thought very seriously for the first time in my entire life that maybe I wouldn't get any more piggies for a while. I love them to bits but this last year has been horrible. I have the room for 12, to be honest my big hutches are so big I could probably fit more but 12 has always been the magic number. I feel like if I have space then I should fill it so that the rescues can then make room for more needy pigs and I feel guilty about the idea of giving less needy pigs a home but at the moment we are spending £44 every 10 days on just 2 of Elizabeth's 4 medications, last week I stocked up for 2 weeks and spent £130. Toby cost nearly £100 plus a full day of driving and the petrol just for one dentist appointment and needs to go back in the next week or two. The idea of saving for decorating the house or redesigning the hutches is just nowhere on the horizon at the moment.
At the moment Toby is doing really well, he is eating on his own and keeping his teeth looking straight. The thickened one at the front that was causing the problem is nowhere near as bad as it was. I hope that when we go back for the check up it will be ok or it won't at least need much work. My mother in law has finished all her treatments and is back at work, just waiting for the last test results to hopefully give her the all clear.
Elizabeth is a little darling, she now also has what we think is lymphoma and the vet is astonished with how well she is doing all things considered. She has some fluid build up in her skin but not in her lungs, her lymph nodes are huge, she struggles to clean her bum and eat her sticky poops so needs help with keeping clean, she is starting to have some issues with her teeth so will probably be accompanying Toby on his next visit to Northampton but even with all that she shouts for her food as best she can and she takes her medicine so well. She is so clearly not ready to give up yet so I have to do everything possible to make life better for her.
It is hard knowing that she probably doesn't have long, every time I make up her meds I wonder if I have just spent all that time splitting, crushing and mixing tablets for nothing if she might have died since I last saw her as her heart could just give out at any second. I feel it's wrong to check she is still there before making up the meds so I just hope and she is always there waiting to take them like a good little pig and get some alone time with some snacks. Since she has to have her meds 3 times a day she comes to work with me now. Her and Jemima have their own little set up at church in one of the spare rooms we don't use much. They come in almost every day with me apart from Sunday when I am home before she needs her afternoon meds. Everyone has fallen for her and it will be doubly sad when something does happen to her as I will have to tell so many people who will be sad to lose her.
I really do admire people who run rescues, hats off to you if you do, I can't imagine having all this on such a larger scale with piggies coming to you in the states that some people let them get to.
Thanks for taking the time to get to the bottom of my rambling, I think I just needed to write it all down and get it out. I have had a bad day liaising with the officer in charge of my case today, I had tried to explain to him about me having Autism and what that means for me to feel the need for information and be updated regularly and I don't think he got it.
Anywho, nearly 4am really should go to bed now.
