Fun With Boggle

Felt that we should keep up with this as a blog and not as a "death summary", which it has been doing. Lazy lazy lazy.

On checking out the cage on Tuesday early evening (the rats don't start getting going until about 9-10 pm and like to go to the wee hours), I saw Boggle standing in the cage with mucus/phlegm on her. Took her out and noticed that she was having trouble breathing. I sat with her to watch her and noted that she was heaving a little and spitting up phlegm. She was also swollen around her neck. Of course, at this time, there are no vets open and only the emergency ones. Gave a call to one to see if they had someone who had a clue about rats and respiratory issues and was told that we could come in, they'd give her oxygen and they'd take a look at her. They also shared that this would cost around $185 to walk in the door, nevermind any oxygen or other treatment.

As much as I love Boggle and have never shied away from spending money on the rats - vet visits, tumor removals, spay/neutering, antibiotics, x-rays, euthanasia costs - spending close to two bills to have someone possibly say "yep, she's sick" is not something we could justify. Unfortunately, non-vets like the ratlisters know as much as "real" vets do about rats/exotics. I figured I'd spend most of the night holding her and watching her and then see about the vet in the morning. Luckily it was my day off the next day and husband could wake me up, I'd reassess Boggle and then stay up and take her to the vets or whathaveyou.

At about 6:45 am I got up to take a look at her only to see that the swelling had gone down and she was no longer heaving or bringing up fluid. So far, a number of days later, she is back to her normal self, as that is. We are not too sure what happened - either some kind of injury to her neck or perhaps had an issue with food causing some kind of problem with her swallowing or neck. Rats can't vomit, so maybe she had food stuck. We'll never really know.

We are pleased as heck that it was just a scare and nothing serious as far as we can tell.