Anansi, one of the African rats, is very ill. Last night I fed them before bed, and took the sleeping box out to check on them as usual, and I thought that Anansi was dead. He was very still and totally cold. I called Phil to come downstairs, and he noticed a very slight heartbeat and slow, shallow breathing, so we wrapped him in towels and took him upstairs to try to revive him.
It’s been incredibly cold here – Phil was stranded for a bit on his way home due to heavy snow and just barely made it home. The combi-boiler doesn’t come on all the time as it should, and we think that it got too cold in the house and Anansi slipped into coma due to hypothermia. After trying to get his circulation up, we filled the sink with warm water and held him in there; I have never felt a living creature as cold as that. In the warm water, you could feel an envelope of cold around him coming from his body. We called the emergency vet, and they said to continue what we were doing and bring him in in the morning if he made it that far. So, he was bedded down with two hot water bottles and wrapped in towels in a cat carrier next to the radiator by the bed.
This morning he was still cold and unresponsive, so the vet gave him an anti-shock injection (probably a mild stimulant), ran fluids under the skin to hydrate him, and started him on antibiotics.
There’s a bit more movement now, although he’s still in a very deep sleep. Poor Aja is upset; when I went to check on her she bit me, probably feeling very vulnerable because she’s never been without him. Tonight when she wakes up, we’ll put his cage by her for a bit so that she can see that he’s still alive.
I think the vet was quite interested in having the chance to examine an animal that he’d never heard of before – he turned him over to look at him, looked in his mouth, etc. :)
Fingers crossed…I just wish he’d wake up.
Other than that all-night drama, everything is fine except for the miserable weather. On Friday everyone was so burned out that the owner of the business went out and came back with a shopping bag full of beer, then sat on the floor and played guitar while everyone drank beer and just bullshitted. It was good…I was very much looking forward to this weekend.
oh no!! I’m crossing fingers for him to pull though. I hope the vet appreciated the opportunity to examine such a creature when he was in no state to bite a finger off :P
as for work! beer?! woo!
lol…yes, Phil did tell him that if Anansi was feeling normal, we would have lost fingers in trying to handle him like that. :)
I love the place where I work. There’s so much work to do, but everyone has SO much fun.
Hope he pulls through.
Thanks. :) He’s still here, although he hasn’t woken up yet.
Poor Anansi! I hope he’s better by now.
Thanks. :) Not yet, but we’re working on it.
How bad are the bites? I have never been bitten by my boy and I hope
I never will I guss I have been lucky so far but he has scratched me lots of times.
The bites? Well, we have seen owners who use thick leather gloves, and then reinforce them with steel mesh as the teeth wil go through leather without noticing it’s there. Onthe one occasion he really did bite me – which was just a defense mechanism really – I didn’t realise for a few seconds until I saw the blood pouring from my finger – their teeth are that sharp.
Ow! I hope Gambit wont ever bite me and break the skin.