Posso is suddenly very ill

[hpdegus]

Thinking of you and Posso.

[teemu]

I took a nap for a couple of hours (I'm trying to watch her for most of the night since she gets cold so easily and can't eat a lot at once), and she seems to have gotten some more energy in her in the meanwhile. She'd crawled to the farthest, hardest-to-reach corner of the cage and put up a really spirited attempt at escaping my grasp when I took her out to give her a bit of CC and her metacam. She also resisted the metacam a lot more and seemed less clueless, so it might be that she's actually coming around a bit. Still very weak and just wants to lie down, but at least she's trying.

Pulla is really no help and basically seems to have missed that there's anything even wrong with her. He was quite spooked when she got back from the vet, but now he doesn't really care what's going on.

[yasmin]

Very late where you are atm - I hope you are getting some sleep - though, I see you are online.
I hope that tomorrow morning she will have noticeably improved.

[teemu]

I'm doing alright. I've been sleeping in shifts and waking up to see to Posso.

Early morning now. She is still very similar, but has not gotten worse at least. She crawls around, but I am very worried about the fact that her feet really don't seem to be able to support her. She's literally crawling, belly to ground. I think that if this was just dehydration and starvation from the dental spurs, she'd be improving already.

So I don't know what to think right now.

[teemu]

I think she's looking just a bit better now. She walked, very wobbly, when I set her down to test her mobility. Still weak, very ill obviously, but things are not going in the wrong direction at least...

[moletteuk]

I hope she's turned the corner. The crawling sounds weird, makes me wonder if it is weakness or some specific pain. Has anyone else seen this?

[savvy]

I had it with Reggie in her last 24 hours, it was almost as if she couldn't use her back legs, but she still had movement and feeling in there.

[teemu]

Still not doing amazing, but I slept for some hours, and during that time she has gained some strength. She can stand pretty solidly now, and she sure didn't take her meds and some CC without a fight.

Something weird is going on with the feeding, though. I've noticed that she becomes a lot more dazed after that, and seems to have some trouble breathing. I'm hoping it's just her exerting herself too much. But also, when I turn her to her back (in my hand, when I'm maneuvering her to use the syringe), she seems to become totally uncoordinated and starts "treading water" with her feet. I'm really not sure what to make of it. Maybe she has vertigo? That could be an inner ear infection. The vet not have found that when inspecting her, either.

I'll be calling the vet soon to report her situation and will mention that. I'm thinking that an antibiotic would probably not hurt, at least.

[hpdegus]

Inner ear infection sounds plausible to me. The first time Pickett got one it was a really quick decline and I thought I would lose him. He was very lethargic and disoriented.

Did they listen to her lungs/check her heart? I think heart problems are more common (at least in the US) than people think.

[teemu]

I just called the vet and they agreed that we should try antibiotics. Nothing to lose, at least, and they said that an ear infection sounds like it could fit the situation. They'll call in a prescription to my local pharmacy.

They did check her lungs and heart, and there were no signs of any abnormalities there.

I'm thinking that I should maybe put her in a carrier when I can't look after her actively, like during the night. She has a really bad tendency to huddle away in some cold corner of the cage, and she gets really cold really quickly (there's obviously something going on with that, she's really cold to the touch every time I fetch her back - and it's really not that cold in here, it's actually pretty warm in our house!). In a smaller carrier, I could make sure that she's close to the heat pad, but there would still be space for her to get off it, but I think it'd still be better since she'll be near it and won't get as cold.

I was hoping that Pulla would warm her up during the night, but he seems to interpret her behavior as wanting to be alone and just does not really even try to take care of her.

[moletteuk]

Syringe feeding is hard enough, but it may be worth trying holding her in a different position if you can, closer to a normal position, in case pain or maybe collected fluid or something collapsing, or spinal pain, or some other random thing is causing the disorientation.

Trying her in the carrier seems logical if you think she will settle in there, maybe try it a bit early so you can watch how it goes.

It's not too unusual for very ill goos to take themselves off to odd corners of the cage, I've always assumed it was an infection control instinct.

[teemu]

Yes, I stopped holding her like that after I noticed how it was affecting her. I hold her upright now, which seems to work better.

It also looks like the carrier might not be needed after all, since she is now crawling back onto the pad of her own volition. Seems like she might be getting a bit more coherent. She's been making small but real improvement over the day.

[savvy]

When I was syringe feeding I found that holding the syringe at the same angle as their water bottle really helped them.

[teemu]

There is a new problem. She has developed a click in her breath and has some trouble breathing. This must be due to her getting cold at times and being in such a bad way, since there was none of that two days ago.

I guess the fortunate thing is that we just started her on the antibiotics in any case, so hopefully that should help.

I was a bit more hopeful about her since she was showing improvement, but she has been through some tough days and it could be that her body just can't take this. I'll be doing my best, of course...

[teemu]

She has started struggling for breath very significantly over the night and is gasping for air. I noticed it when I posted, and then it was quite slight, but now in something like 3 hours, she is audibly gasping. I have no idea how it could become this bad so quickly. I'm wondering if she might have inhaled some of the CC or medications I gave her since she was struggling and quite uncoordinated. But I don't know, this started hours after a feeding. There's something obviously going on with her whole situation...

I don't know what's going on with this. Her condition has otherwise improved and she moves a lot more, but now she is in distress over the breathing. I will try to contact the vet as soon as they open and see if anything can be done. But as she is now, I can't even feed her or otherwise do anything for her. I don't know what else I could do to try to help her right now.

Unless something can be done about this quickly, I'm afraid that it's looking really, really bad for her...

[moletteuk]

I don't think it would be a syringe feed problem if it occurred hours after a feed. Pneumonia woukd fit with her difficulties after a feed in a different position. Pleurisy might fit with her distress.

I'm sorry it's not looking good for her. My only suggestion at this point is a steroid shot, but she may be beyond it helping, so don't feel obliged to try it.

[teemu]

Posso was taken back to the vet today. They looked her over and then did an xray of her body. There was some sort of a mass in the abdominal area. It was unclear what exactly it was, but likely a tumor. I requested euthanasia at that point, and they agreed that it was the right call. They could have tried to operate on her, but given her poor condition, it did not seem like the right thing to do any more. I opted to end her suffering rather than force her to go through more of this.

I feel crushed over this and Pulla is confused and worried when she did not come back home with me (I am unable to retrieve the body today since they could not give me an exact time since this was an emergency visit without appointment). It really hurts to think that he's now lost another cagemate. They loved each other so much.

I did what I could, but I guess she was just in too bad a way by the time it became clear that she was so ill...

[moletteuk]

I'm very sorry, Teemu. You 100% did everything you could AND let her go at the right time.

The shock and grief are plenty for you to deal with today, sad as it is for Pulla, try not to worry unduly about him right now, you know that it is possible for him to live happily with a female goo, he will be OK.

[savvy]

I am so very sorry teemu.

You did everything you could, but sadly it wasn't to be.

Rest in peace little one, you are loved and will be missed.

[teemu]

Thank you for the kind words. There's no upsides to something like this, but it does give me some peace of mind that there was something going on with her that I could not have really solved, no matter how much I tried.

She was always the most wary and reclusive of my degus. She probably had been feeling ill for some time, but hid it all as well as possible.

I'll be keeping closer eyes on all of them from now on, though. Ultimately something like this won't make itself known by anything other than weight possibly starting to drop, before it starts to get really bad.