Tsuri - a 2-ounce wonder

About an hour ago, Tsuri was euthanized. She developed a respiratory infection - remember I said she was wheezing?? Well it turned out to be something called mycoplasmosis: something rats are born with but doesn't show up until middle age or later - by the time the symptoms show up the decline is fast. Her breathing was labored, it took all her strength just to inhale. I heard the vet talking about quality of life - but I knew before she came in that this was it. Something about the cold light of day in that examining room made me realize that it wasn't fair to ask Tsuri to go through more of this. The folks at the Vet College Teaching Hospital were absolutely marvelous. They treated her - and me - with the utmost respect and compassion. They let me grieve and they gave her body back to me in a little box with a little blankie over it - said I could keep it.

So I brought her home and put her in the cage with Ceçania, her cage-mate. Ania, in true rat fashion, scratched at Tsuri's ears, washed her face, shook her shoulders to try to wake her up - and then walked away. I reached inside the cage and removed the little body, and put it back in the box in which I brought it home. We'll have a burial for her later... in the same spot in the flower garden where we've buried all the critters that have made their way through our menagerie of a household.

It's amazing how much one little rattie can worm her way into my heart. She's out of distress now - and in the last 6 weeks she has taught me more about the Christian life than I've heard in many sermons.

I could say more but I think I'll go hug my kids now.

A promising development - Tsuri

Guess what I saw last night when I went to get Tsuri for her feeding?

I caught her climbing on the bars of the cage! This is the first time - to my knowledge - that she's had the strength in her paws to hold on to the cage bars and support her own weight - since her stroke a month ago!

She fell off when I opened the cage door - but even for her to have held on for as long as she did is very encouraging! She has developed a wheeze to her breathing...so I hope that doesn't mean she has a respiratory infection (very serious in rats and humans alike). However, the added strength is a good sign. Maybe someday she'll even be able to eat seeds again.

Plus - her hair is starting to grow back in behind her ears where she'd been obsessively cleaning so much (because of stress, or frustration) that she wore the hair off. And since she has been bruxing (grinding her teeth) the whole time, she doesn't need to have her teeth clipped. (Rats are rodents - their teeth need to be worn down because they are constantly growing. If they are sick, or there is a problem with a bite that doesn't close properly, sometimes the teeth need to be shortened, just like you would clip fingernails that get too long. It's mostly painless for the rat - but not nearly as easy as clipping fingernails since teeth are thicker and there's that little tongue that keeps getting into the wrong places).

Now all we need to do is concentrate on getting her back to her pre-stroke weight.

I'm not unrealistic. Rats rarely survive beyond 6 months after a major stroke, if they survive at all. And once they have a stroke, they're liable to have another - which is usually fatal. So for now, we are taking one day at a time and rejoicing in every little bit of progress. And along the way, Father God is teaching us all about dependency, relationship, and trust.

That's so cool.