What a rollercoaster!
It's been ages since this little slack duck has updated. I know. I am sooooo slack! But we have had some really emotional and worrying times since the new year rang in.
First off - Bailey. We have had a terrible time with the poor little thing. In January, we had to rush him to the small animal hospital as he suffered an insulin overdose. Which I blame the vet for. As his sugar is so hard to regulate, the vet kept telling us to increase his dosage. Which we did. Which resulted in him overdosing. Mum rushed him to our local vet, who couldn't regulate him with glucose shots, so he told Mum to take him straight to the animal hospital. Thankfully, a state of the art one has opened up not far from us at all, so Mum took him there. They have 24/7 monitoring, so after two days he was back home. And we were $1200- poorer. He has been having follow up visits and changes in his insulin, so that is more money. And then early this month Mum rushed him back to the hospital. Yes, he had another episode. They kept him for another two days. So another $1100-.
Turns out that this time he also had an infection in his teeth which was throwing his sugar out. An causing him to not eat. He's back home again, and his insulin has been changed again, along with the dosage. And we have to give him the same dose morning and night regardless whether he eats or not. This insulin and syringes costs $100- at a time. The needles themselves are $38- for a pack of 30. And we use two a day. So very expensive. Plus, his cataracts have now made him virtually blind, and he has very limited vision. He really can't see at all during the sunny days, and his night vision isn't much better. So it has taken him a few weeks to get used to it. He's not sleeping through the night, and has both Mum and dad up several times a night. Mum has slept on the lounge the last few nights, and he seems to be a little better. But she is going back to her opwn bed tonight, and we are just gonna leave Bailey on the ground to sleep where he wants.
Part of the night trouble was that we were putting him up on Mum and Dad's bed, and then he was waking them up to be lifted off so that he could drink some water at night. So it is easier to just leave him on the ground. He manages to get himself out to the back room to pee, and even barks for the back door to be opened so he can go out. He has now learnt to get himself out the doggy door, and down the steps. And we have paper on the floor in the back room which he uses. He sometimes wakes me up as well, but mainly sticks to getting the parents up. Which is good, because I need to sleep so I can work. He is so fussy with his eating though, and what he eats today, he may turn up his nose at that evening or the next day. And he wont eat unless Mum or I start by hand feeding him. Oh yeah, talk about spoilt! But what can you do? He's our baby.
In other news, my emotions have been really touchy, and it lasted about three weeks. When Bailey was in hospital, I worked myself up into a real state, and was crying all the time. I was also so damned shitty it was just dreadful! Got myself smoe evening primrose oil to take and I seem to be a bit better. I still get really upset and depressed though, and worry endlessly. This menopase sucks!
Parents seems to be holding their own (touch wood), as well as brother rat (again touch wood). But this heatwave that we are still having is killing me! Bring on winter.
There's a few other things happening - but I think I should do it in another post. This one's getting a bit long.....