Sheldon's furbabies

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Sheldon is not well. She has been sleeping a lot more in the past few weeks but with no other symptoms. Anytime the gang was all out she would go eat some veggies and then hop up on me and want to take a nap. Tonight her behavior seemed normal at first, but when I picked her up I noticed she was quite cool to the touch. I put her down to watch how she moved and such, and I then see that her sides are a little sunken in. She seems slightly dehydrated, but not badly. She isn't refusing food or drink. She is moving quite slowly, but I'm seeing no odd use of extremities or anything. She's more acting like she is in general discomfort. No respiratory symptoms whatsoever, though I started abx tonight just in case she is having silent symptoms or something. I would think that maybe she had just injured herself and that it would be the cause for the changes but she's not guarding at all (in fact she is extremely affectionate, even for her), and that wouldn't explain the changes in the last couple of weeks. I'm worried about her. I have her cuddled in bed with me with a special heating pad and access to food, water, and litter box in the immediate vicinity so hopefully she does not feel the urge to get down. She's really soaking up the loving. Also of note, I did give her a dose of meloxicam in case it is injury related.

As if it wasn't obvious from all the favoritism in my posts, she is my HEART rat. :(

Edit: I guess I shouldn't say NO respiratory symptoms. She has been breathing 100-120 times per minute. I just meant there are no audible symptoms.
 
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Possibly. I am watching her very closely right now. I am worried about dehydration. It's weird, because she is barely drinking but she eats as much as usual. Scratching my head on that one. I had a discussion with her that if she didn't drink some Gatorade or water by this evening I was going to get the lactated ringers out. o_O
 
Have you started her on antibiotics? You may not notice pneumonia starting it can hit hard and fast. Have you felt her belly for tumors?

Sunken in sides can also be a sign of pain.
 
Yeah I started her on abx at the first sign yesterday. I gave her meloxicam too thinking it was pain. No s/s tumours. She is/was getting dehydrated. At this point she has not had a drink in hours. I think simple dehydration is causing the sunken sides and rapid breathing. I decided she could not wait any longer as she was progressively getting worse. She is now getting subq fluids. Poor dear her skin is peeling and she's barely peeing and her tongue is sticky. I think I may have waited too long. I do not think she would make it through the night without the fluids.

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I did get her to eat a few bites of baby food for this picture.
 
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She is better. I have her 2 fluid boluses last night to catch her up so she is better hydrated now but still refusing to drink. I hope I don't have to do it again tonight.

The fluid is weight based but there is a range. I gave 5ml then reassessed in 90 min and gave 5 more ml, warmed for comfort of course.
 
:getwell: Sheldon !!! :wow2: I cannot believe you got that heplock in her. I have enough trouble getting a butterfly needle in when giving fluids. How are you getting her to leave it alone??? Our vet told us they need 30mls of fluid a day, so when we had our PT boys/kidney failure boy (not saying Sheldon has PT/kidney failure - that is just when we had to give fluids) we would give three times a day 10 mls each time... Hope she gets better soon....
 
Yeah technically it is not an IV, just the catheter placed subcutaneously. She is a good girl. I just had to tell her no about 10 times and she left it alone. I couldn't put more past 5mL because though technically I should have been able to place 7mL, she kept peeping like she was uncomfortable. I knew I would have to put more in shortly thereafter and I didn't want her to have to get stuck again. I took it out after the second bolus. If I have to help her out again tonight I will likely do the same thing. I like that the catheters are soft plastic so they don't continue to poke, and I prefer to give the fluids extremely slowly so I really wanted something indwelling. It worked pretty well but I don't know how you could make that work if the rat wasn't a hairless.

Also you really don't have to do a whole lot of lock prep because since it is not intravenous a little clot would be no biggie. ;)
 

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