Ratablog

Kado gains 14 grams!

He has been eating better since Tuesday, and the swelling in his face has gone down some. (It's not back to normal, though.) Still, this is the first time in months that he's actually gained weight, and the vet was very pleased.

There won't be any updates for the next week. We'll be on vacation, and the animals are in good hands (our petsitter is a vet tech, and she loves rats.) We aren't going to have her do blog updates, though.

Hoping for a quiet week...

Kado's jaw

In this picture you can see the swelling I mentioned in the comment on the last post. (His eye has been porphyrin-y for the whole week, too.)

In this picture from May 11, his jaw is big at the top (compared to the other rats) but it still tapers down to his nose.

He does go back to the vet Friday, unless it looks worse tomorrow, in which case he'll go tomorrow.

On the plus side, he's eatting more on his own.

Check the teeth!

Last night while trying to get Kato to drink a syringe of Boost, I noticed that his teeth looked a little funny. On closer inspection and after comparing him to Artax, I realized that his top teeth were crooked, and one had grown pretty long.

I don't know how long it had been that way, but maybe that's why he hasn't been eating. (Or maybe because he hasn't been eating his hard food, his teeth aren't getting sufficiently ground down.) Either way, something to fix. Victor took him in this morning and the vet clipped his teeth. He's eaten better today, and seems a bit more active.

This is a lesson. We (me, Victor, and the vets) have been focusing on his lungs and assuming that his disinterest in eating was related to that, but one shouldn't forget to check for other things.

Kado update

I definitely feel like there is more going on with Kado than the respiratory infection.

On Friday morning, he didn't seem right to me, although I can't quite articulate specifics. When I got home Friday afternoon I brought him out, and he wasn't walking right...his posture was hunched, and his fur was sticking up.

The hunched posture made me think kidney pain (this may be because Eanna asked about protein causing kidney problems...the answer to that is yes, too much protein can eventually harm the kidneys, but I don't think Kado has had nearly enough for that.) I rushed him to the vet.

I was grateful that he saw us...technically they were closed for the day, and he was already late for an obligation. He gave Kado a good physical exam and said that he didn't feel anything around the liver or kidneys, and Kado never squealed or acted like it hurt. The only thing the doc felt was a hardness in the colon, and he asked if Kado'd been pooping.

Since he lives with Artax, I couldn't answer that, so Friday night I set up a separate cage for Kado. When there was no poop after several hours, I starting the internet searches for how to treat a constipated rat. (Answer: canned pumpkin, which I actually had. And which Kado actually ate, thankfully.)

Saturday morning he was pooping, although the droppings were small and harder than normal. (I'm sorry about the graphic nature of this, I hope you aren't trying to eat breakfast. I do include the details in case some other desperate rat owner ever needs the information.) I've been giving him lots of fruit, which he's eating, but not with much enthusiasm.

Overall, he still isn't acting comfortable, though.

As it happened, I spent Saturday evening with my aunt, who is dying of lung cancer. By dying, I mean in the days left to live stage, and while there I read some literature left by her hospice about the physical changes as the body goes through what can be a long death process.

I hope no one finds this disrespectful, but I found myself recognizing many of these signs with the rats we have had.

I also found myself matching up some of Kado's behavior the last day or two with some of the early signs.

I stil haven't decided if I should take Kado back to the vet this week for x-rays, which might tell us more definitively if he has tumors, or if we should stress him with blood tests. Quite honestly, if he has anything beyond the lung infection we are treating, I'm not sure there's anything to do besides keep him comfortable. At some point, we switch from aggressive treatment to palliative care, it may be that time.

Kado update

Kado had a recheck today. The good news is that we finally seemed to hit on a drug combination (oral azithromycin with nebulized Baytril and dexamethasone) that has left his lungs sounding clear (or as good as it is likely to get.)

The bad news is that he is still dropping weight. He's down to 413 grams, more than 100 grams less than where we began. Lately I've been giving him Boost Plus, the highest-calorie liquid meal replacement I could find, in addition to higher protein foods like egg and chicken. Oh, and fats like yogurt, cheese, avocado, and olive oil. Then there was the whipped cream...

I don't think it's for lack of eating. It could be that he has cancer, or some other metabolic illness. For the next couple of weeks we are going to taper back the dexamethasone (hopefully his breathing will stay good) and I'll keep trying to tempt him with yummy food...recipes are welcome. (And seriously, if you can think of high calorie food that's still relatively healthy, let me know.)

Neiko's dessert

Fresh blackberries and whipped cream.

(Please pardon the chewed up boxes and newspaper. That cage is such a rats' nest.)

Back home

When I got home last night, Oliver and Bandit were curled up together in the hammock. It was very cute, and I'm glad to see Bandit back with his buddy.

Of course the sound of me picking up the camera was enough to wake them, and the autofocus light was enough to uncurl them (and make Oliver close his left eye), but they are still cute:

Artax rides a bike

"I could do this, if only I could reach the pedals...and the handlebars."

The rats are watching the Tour de France

...that's why things are so quiet.

The only news: tonight Bandit is moving back in with Neiko and Oliver. His scabs did start healing up, and it looks like there aren't new ones, but we are concerned that he's losing all that socialization.

442

That's how many grams Kado weighs today. I haven't been good about monitoring his weight, partly because he's been going to the vet weekly and partly because, well, I couldn't find the scale.

This go-round, he has two weeks between vet visits, and since I'm giving him the Pedisure along with every healthy treat I can think of (tonight he ate a nice piece of tuna), I'm going to watch the weight more carefully.

Since blueberries are so good for rats, we use them as treats a lot. This is a particularly good time, because they are in season here, and we picked some up at a local farm this weekend. The berries are nice and sweet, and all of the rats have been setting speed-eating records.

Kado update

Kado finished up the nebulized dexamethasone on Wednesday, and by Friday he was audibly grunty again. Needless to say he's back on it, though we are trying a lower dose.

The vet's big concern now is that Kado is still losing weight, about 40 grams a week. He's not outrageously skinny, but I'm able to feel his spine, and this trend is disturbing. I'm at a loss...normally I have trouble keeping rats lean. And Kado does eat: he takes egg, avocado, chicken, anything I give him. The trouble is, he nibbles a bit and stashes, like he has no real appetite.

Today I decided that since he loves taking his medicine so much, I'd try giving him some Pedisure with the syringe. He took almost 2 cc of that. If I have to I will certainly feed him liquids by hand, I just need to research with the correct meal replacement dose is for a rat.

I know, this is what a rat should look like, not like the blobs most of our turn into...what the picture doesn't show is how fragile he feels.

On the plus side, he is a lot more active. I hadn't realized how slow he was until her perked up this week.