Kat called a little while ago to tell me she had to put one of the rats down that we had together. Can something NICE and Pleasant and good happen for a change? I'm so tired of the fecal matter constantly hitting the aircirculator.

Hey everyone, I'm almost done with vacation. I've totally missed blogging and am definitely looking forward to returning to it with a vengence. Remember my last post about how we had to put Crimson to sleep before we went on vacation?? Well the sadness doesn't end there. Two days after that post, Kat and I checked our voicemail and there was an urgent message from my mom. She had to take Clover to the vet because there was vaginal bleeding. I had to call later in the day to find out what happened.

The vet said he could do an xray but it wouldn't do much good. She had either a tumor in her uterus or Kidney stones and either way it would mean surgery if she didn't stop bleeding on her own. Because she was (yes was) over 2 and a half he didn't recommend surgery. He told my mom that the only humane thing to do was to euthanize her. My mom was going to go the next day to have it done, but the vet called her later and said she wouldn't make it through the night, she was getting weaker and weaker and loosing a lot of blood. So my mom left work to go be with clover while she was euthanized. *SOB*

I did not need to start out vacation with euthanizing one of our rats, but we did. Crimson was having a really hard time breathing. I don't have the heart to look for a picture of her, but it was our simease rat if you look at my photo blog. My heart is breaking. I don't have the time or energy to post more. What a fucking way to start vacation.

Crimson is our simease rat. Both she and her litter mate Clover are over 21/2 years old. Crimson, despite being spayed and having one tumor removed has three large tumors on her. She's starting to have mobility problems. I'll be amazed if she lives until we come back from vacation. It's so damned hard loosing the rats so often (2 1/2 years or so) but if you know what pet rats are like, you know how we can't stop having them.

Crimson is one our simease rat. We discovered a third tumor on her last night. (Can you tell last night sucked shit for me?) We definitely don't have much time left with her, but we will enjoy what little we do.

All 5 of our rats are now housed together. The three younger ones have barely left the ground floor. This morning they were beginning to discover, hey there's three more levels to play on! It's really very cute.

It's been a while since I've blogged about the rodentia. Everyone is fine for the most part. Crimson is developing tumors despite her surgery which is disapointing but happens. What we are working on right now is trying to introduce the three babies with the two older rats. It is a very slow process. Every night we have them out in groups individually, and then enmass for 10 or 15 minutes until the fur starts flying. It's going to take awhile, but we really want all of the rats to be intergrated by the time we go on vacation in June.

Kat realized this weekend that Crimson (one of our rats) is getting a growth again where she had previously had a tumor removed. The poor fuzzy is getting old, so we can't really submit her to more surgery. It's not fair that these loveable fuzzies don't live that long.

I call her Dominatrix because of the 3 younger rats, she seems to be not only the smallest, but the most Dominant. It definitely turns out you get what you pay for. Her incision is completely healed and we were able to put her back in the tank with her sisters. We have a VERY VERY happy Domino at home. She doing wonderfully! Yeah!

We took Domino to the more expensive vet to compare the services of the two different vets that we use. Yeah, well now it's one vet only and it will be the more expensive vet. You obviously get what you pay for. Domino's scar is healing much faster than her two sisters did. This vet did give us antibiotics for her. The cheaper vet (who spayed Domino's sisters) didn't give us antibiotics because supposedly with Laser surgery it's not needed (bullshit I say). So Domino is healing much faster. She's already desperate to be back with her sisters, and it breaks my heart that she can't play with them. Though we are letting them crawl over each other and groom so the poor fuzzy isn't completely depressed.

The little Domino is fine and is resting in their ICU. (Giggle) Can you imagine how cute rittie ICU is??? We can take her home tonight.

I couldn't take the suspense any more so I called the vet. They are only sedating her now. So I should know how she's doing fairly soon.

Dominatrix is my little nick name for Domino because she seems to be a dominant rat. She also likes to hump her sisters. I had such a hard time dropping her off at the vets this morning. She kept mooching through the carrier with the expression "Hey, what do you think your doing? Where are you going? MMAAAAMMMMAAAA" It was so sad. I almost cried on the way back to the car. My poor little baby girl.

This little Domino is getting spayed.