Fun with Medicine

We had noticed a lump on Boggle about three weeks ago and decided to monitor it to see if it got bigger or was just an injury that had happened when they were playing.

Also, we had seen that Houdini was getting a bit thinner and her fur didn't seem to be as nice.

Time to go to the vet's.

Made the appointment to go and take both in; one to confirm that yes, indeed, Boggle had a lump and it needs to be removed and two to see about some medicine for Houdini.

No problem. The vet decides to give Houdini a shot to get her started (a shot being better than oral) and Houdini did not like that at all. She made such a fuss when the vet tried to give her the shot that he had to go and get a different preparation that was more concentrated as she would not sit still for a regular shot.

So comes the time for some of the oral preparation to be given to her - about half an hour before going to work. How hard could it be to give a little rat a bit of banana tasting medicine?

Well, first we tried it in the syringe having read people saying that *their* rats will lick the medicine right from the syringe. Yum! Not our Houdini. So then we try the next step - holding her under the pits with a circular thumb and middle digit. Hell decides at that time to break loose. Wiggle wiggle wiggle scratch scratch scratch. Out comes the gloves for better traction. Full scale escalation. Rat wigs out completely. I give up after said wig out to see that she has managed to rip her toenail off. Husband goes on the web to see what to do about a ripped toenail. The thing is bleeding. Styptic power? No. Cornstarch? No. Flour? YES!

I coat her foot with flour and hold her and wait for the bleeding to stop. Now about 45 min late for work. Put Houdini in the cage and get ready. About five minutes later return to see that she has fussed the wound open and it is bleeding quite a bit. Wonderful.

Get the whole bag of flour, sit on the couch and stick her foot in it. Decide to stay home from work that night and babysit the rat to make sure she doesn't bleed out overnight. Nice boss. Thank you boss. Going to work overnight on a Friday to make it up sucked, though.

So we sit together watching really bad night teevee with her foot in a bag for about an hour. Then the foot is removed and then we sit and watch yet more teevee with my hand periodically removing her head from her foot for another three hours. At about 4:15 in the morning I figure it is fine for her to be left to her own devices.

It actually looks quite good all considering. It hasn't bled since and there appears to be no signs of infection. We tried mixing the medicine with yogurt which didn't work, but it seems chocolate pudding might do the trick.

Husband is way too nice to say the two magical words to me: "low maintenance".