Ratablog

And for our 200th entry...

Publius will discuss Kanga.

As Abita said, Kanga still hates her e-collar, but she seems to be resigned to it. She's eaten some chocolate and apparently had some water while wearing it (Abita hasn't been the only one to get pee'd on), but she's not happy about it, and this PM, I think I now know another reason.

I took her out to give her her PM baytril, and after giving it to her, she ran her hands on the back of the collar, several times, as if she was grooming. I wondered if it was related to all the porphyrin from her eye, so I took a small piece of tissue, got it wet, and cleaned her eye. Kanga held as still as she could while I cleaned her eye for her, and she actually seemed a bit relieved after I had groomed her. I think she really misses grooming herself.

***

If you've been a regular reader, you know Kanga is our third rat who has recently developed mammary tumors. Arwen was helped to her final nap late last month when the tumor began to turn black; Ohana's has developed a large scab, she's been losing weight, and I know she's near her end. All three girls developed their tumors at roughly the same time (if I recall correctly, within six weeks of each other)...so why did we have Kanga's excised while the others have not been?

It was not an easy decision, by any stretch. Part of it is age: As cruel as it seems, rats frequently don't live much past 30 months. At that point, I feel they're in their 80's as measured in human years, and I wonder if they can handle anaesthesia and the recovery. Arwen and Ohana were older than Kanga.

There's also the fact mammary tumors are frequently fast growing and persistant. Arwen and Ohana's lumps grew very quickly, but Kanga's was much slower growing.

Abita's first rats, Krycek and Rizzo, both developed fast-growing mammary tumors at about the same time. Abita had them both removed; however, both girls (IIRC) started developing more tumors before the stitches were even out.

So, in a nutshell, part of the decision to not have the current girls tumors excised was a fear they'd reappear quickly, and we would *really* be worried about putting them under anaesthesia for a second time so soon after having been under.

However, Kanga also developed her eye thingy, which eventually morphed into something that looked like a spike sticking out of her eye. It didn't seem to bother her at all, though I think she has very diminished sight in that eye (if so, I'm amazed I've never seen her do a head sway as rats with diminished eyesight are wont to do). Abita and I had discussed having it trimmed; after vacation, she brought it up again, only this time she included having the tumor removed. After thinking about it, I agreed.

What went into the decision were the facts she's relatively young (about fifteen months), the tumor was slow-growing, and it didn't feel as if was attached to anything (in fact, Dr. F showed us the tumor. What was contained in a sphere that had a diameter smaller than the diameter of a quarter had spread out into something just a bit smaller than my palm. It was whole, as if it slid out in one piece.).

And, I must confess, part of it was the fact we had just lost Arwen, we're about to lose Ohana...and I feel really bad I didn't do anything to help them. I take Ohana out for playtime and I apologize to her. I apologized to Arwen when I took her out, too, and I apologized to Kanga, too, before I made the decision to have her tumor excised.

I feel awful about Arwen and Ohana, but at least I can save Kanga. She's sitting on the bed next to me, eating freeze-dried peas, happy that she's not wearing the collar I'm about to put back on her and wondering what that odd feeling in her side is...but for now, I'm grateful she's lumpless.

Posted by Publius at August 17, 2005 10:46 PM