#i try to keep my hyperfixations normal around my family bc i dont want them to laugh at me

[maudiemoods]

Worst fuckin thing happened to me today I went to a festival with my sister, her boyfriend and my friend and my friend and I were joking around about the whole smash cake trend and they said something like "hear me out, king Sombra" and showed me a fukin picture and I said "yeah, yeah ok I see it. That's a horse but I see it" ABF YOU KNOW WHAT THYE SAID??? "At least it's not a triangle" AUGHHUURGAGGH!!! AUYGH!! MY SISTER WAS RIGHT THERE!! SHE STARTED LAUGHING!! NOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!! SHE SAID "haha yeah at least he's not a fucking shape" AUGHHEUAYHH I HATE EVERYONE!!! Even worse was that I was dressed at the oncler the whole fucking time

[gayerluke]

so i’ve been meaning to write about this for almost a week now since it happened early tuesday morning, but i’ve been burying myself in hyperfixation hell to distract from the utter shock & devastation of it. but i owe my friends on main to talk about it bc i know you guys care about me & my little family.

tw for animal death

my rat patrick passed away extremely suddenly & unexpectedly in the middle of the night between monday & tuesday. he was euthanized at the ER & went peacefully. i wasn’t with him during the actual moment (protocol with small animals is different because they use a different method) but i gave him a lot of love right before they took him back.

both rats were completely FINE early monday. they were active & behaving normally, like little scamps. i came in late that night to check them before bed. david was his normal self, climbing up the cage bars to come see me. patrick, however, was curled up in a little ball, fur all puffed out, eyes squinted: classic sick rat pose. i picked him up & he was awake & responsive, but didn’t squirm like he normally would. his breathing was extremely labored. to me it seemed like an upper respiratory infection, but it’s unusual for them to come on so suddenly -- usually you’ll see mild symptoms building up over the course of maybe a week before it gets this bad (i would’ve definitely begun treatment well before he had reached the state he was in). URIs can usually be treated with simple antibiotics/anti-inflammatories, which needs to be supplemented with a probiotic bc rats are hindgut fermentors who need the beneficial bacteria to digest. but i knew this was bad enough that he needed to go to the ER bc he needed oxygen.

took both rats with me to help reduce the stress for them. this was about 3am. the person who opened the door for me was someone i know from school, of course, bc there’s literally nowhere in town i can go without someone i know working there. it’s fine though bc she was kind of a calming presence & also they can tell the doctor im a tech so they dont dumb it down for me. they took him back right away & took vitals; breathing was labored like i said but he was also hypothermic with a temp of 96; normal is 100-102.5, same as a dog or cat. they put him in an incubator with heat & oxygen. took x-rays, found fluid in the lungs but also AROUND the lungs, known as pleural effusion.

it was at this point that i knew it was not a simple URI but something really really bad. i associate pleural effusion with heart disease; fluid builds up in the institial spaces when blood isn’t being pumped properly. the dr said the fluid could either be pus from infection, blood from trauma, or free fluid (water basically) from a cardiac abnormality, likely congenital given his age. the only way to know for sure was a thoracentesis (chest tap) for $2,000, which didn’t guarantee anything except diagnosis of the type of fluid, & could also cause further damage. just sending him home on antibiotics wasn’t going to work unless we knew it was an infection & could jeopardize his health even further. she also revealed that she didn’t want to do outpatient bc she really didn’t think he’d survive very long outside of the oxygen cage. i was there for several hours just trying to come to a decision. ultimately i chose to let him go. he was only 3 months old.

i elected to have a necropsy performed on site free of charge (as opposed to sending it out to the big lab for more precise diagnosis). i had to call the vet 4 times to finally get ahold of the attending doctor to get the report; the 4th time i called i sobbed on the phone to the receptionist. waiting was the worst fucking part. finally got to talk to her yesterday. the ER vet’s best guess was a congenital heart defect; however the vet who did the necropsy found that it was in fact a severe infection. i can’t help blaming myself & wondering if he could’ve been saved if i’d just taken him home on the antibiotic meds, or if it could’ve been prevented if i’d taken better care of him.

i’ve been a complete wreck since then, breaking down in sobs a lot. i didn’t sleep for 4 days. but the absolute worst part of all this is david. rats are social animals; they CANNOT live alone. human companionship isn’t enough. now i put him in his carrier & set it out on the couch or bed with a towel down so he can hang out with me for 6-8 hours a day. but he’s too nervous to come out of the carrier (patrick was always the investigative one who’d let david know when it was safe). he mostly sleeps all day. he is not eating much if anything & i’m trying to keep track of any weight loss, though he does seem to eat a bit with the emergency nutrical smeared on his kibble.

so now i’m at a crossroads: i either get another rat, which i’m not totally sure i want to do, or re-home him. the necropsy results help me determine that, because they’re most likely littermates so if patrick had a heart defect david could too.

again, i’ve been in stasis the last 5 days but now i have to make a tangible plan. at this point i’m leaning towards getting a second rat; david & i have bonded so much over this experience that i don’t want to give him away & really, 2 rats aren’t much more work than one. i might go back to the reptile store where they’re from to see if the owner (who i know) will just give me another one with good temperament.

but first david needs a vet appointment to see if he has any evidence of infection setting in, or if he should have prophylactic antibiotics. the cage & room need a deep clean. technically i could get a new rat right now since i’d want to quarantine both of them for 2 weeks, but unfortch i’m flying to fucking portland again next friday. i need to find where to board him.

sorry this is so long but i’ve really been Processing it all. i’ve spent all week in shock. for the first 2 days i couldn’t look at david without breaking down in full-on sobs. patrick was only 3 months. he was doing so well & becoming a big boy. i’m heartbroken. but i’m determined to still give david a good life.