Gone but not forgotten - Virginia - January 6, 2008

Virginia came with us only expecting to live for a few months. We had gone to the rescue to get Lulu and Virginia was a bit of a throw in. We were told that she was getting thin and was probably only going to be with us for a short time and so we were expecting to give her a few months of a "forever home" and then she'd go to The Bridge. This was on January 10, 2007. She almost made it to a year with us!

What I will always remember about her was her obsessive trait of opening her wounds. She ended up having two lumps and getting those removed. She then promptly opened up the cuts and we had a heck of a time with her. One ended up healing without sutures/staples because she wouldn't stop fussing at them. In the fall, she ended up growing another one and it was quite a dilemma for us as she was outliving her original estimate and we weren't sure whether or not to put her through a surgery. Also, I thought I felt a small lump in her lower belly - the same general area that Nibble had hers. As it was, two others needed to get done so in the end she got done as well. We'd deal with the belly lump as it came.

Of course, she opened it up and we had to return to the vet. What we ended up doing was putting her in the sick cage and then monitoring her. We stopped after about 10 hours (YMMV) but every time she even looked at the wound we'd either tap on the cage bars, tap her or in some cases put a hand between her mouth and the wound. After a few hours of that, she'd get paranoid and the wound stayed intact.

She was a good little girl other than that. She was a curious and friendly girl but not interested in staying and visiting too long. Our times outside the cage together were short because she'd be trying to go somewhere else. Very restless even for a female rat.

The belly lump eventually claimed her, I believe. She started to lose weight and I knew that the end was finally arriving for her. We had seen in it others with the lumps that are not able to be removed. We decided to keep her at home rather than take her to another vet. She did well until the day before she died where she wasn't eating and then on the Sunday she died as I was holding her. We were prepared for this and tried to spend a lot of time with her and watching her.

She will be deeply missed. For a rat that was only supposed to be with us for a short period of time, she made it to almost a year. I hope she is satisfying her curiosity and wanderlust at The Bridge.