okay⦠so here i go...
beginning of december, i brought two female rats to the mentioned hospital to have them spayed: cookie, a siamese girl who was born christmas 2011 and hairietta, a hairless rat who was around 8 months. until that point, both were healthy as far as i was able to determine.
my husband & i took them to the hospital on a wednesday and surgery was scheduled the next day. thursday morning, i received a phone call from the clinic and was connected to dr. gallon who informed me that hairietta had "passed away". naturally, i was shocked. she reported that she had done well during the surgery but after waking became very agitated. she also mentioned that they tried CPR when they realized that there was a problem - but to no avail. i don't know, how much time passed between her waking up and her death but it sounded to me like a few hours as several things were mentioned which would have meant taking her in and out of the cage etc...
according to dr. gallon this had only happened to her once in her whole career and she asked if i would be willing to have the rat autopsied. while i didn't really like the thought, i am not squeamish and agreed as i felt that she might gain some insights.
when i did not hear back from dr. gallon, i called again some time later. it turned out that the rat had an enlarged heart and the vet pointed out that this is part of the hairless gene.
huh??? i had done some research before getting hairietta and i knew that - especially in the past - hairless rats were prone to various illnesses. however, those illnesses were mainly due to environmental stresses - not as part of a genetic disorder. please someone enlighten me...
i do understand that anesthetics can be a problem for small animals. however, she did make it through the surgery and things only happened afterwards.
also, cookie was handed back to me with 2 bite wounds - 1 being rather bad - and i was instructed to give her baytril for it.
the two girls had been living together harmoniously but it dawned on me later that both rats would have, of course, been subjected to topical antiseptics leaving an unknown odour on them. i have learned from my active cat rescue days to never place two dazed cats together in the same cage after surgery - no matter how well they know each other. the handling and different topical solutions alter the smell the cats are used to and they will not recognize each other at first. that plus the haze of the anestheticsâ¦
i did not transfer this knowledge to the rats - otherwise i would have brought 2 cages - and i blame myself for this incident because i feel that from what i heard, hairietta could possibly still be with me. however, i find the fact that the clinic is/was obviously also oblivious to what i feel should be well known and, therefore, common practice in an animal hospital rather surprising. so, i am left wondering if that would have caused the agitation: waking up from the anesthetics and being in a vulnerable situation only to find another 'unknown' rat inside her cage?
in addition, the hospital environment is also quite stressful (to which i will say a little more further down).
so, only cookie returned homeâ¦
a few weeks have passed and i recently got another rat since i did not want cookie to be by her own. this time i found a young male who adopted me and i named him gulliver.
when i brought gulliver home, i noticed that he had a small lump underneath his chin. again, i contacted dr. gallon, this time sending her pictures of the slightly increased swelling and asked if she felt that this was a tumour or if something else could be causing the lump. (i tend to assume the worst even though i am aware that tumours are rare in males and especially at such a young age.) she felt that there were probably other factors causing this and i agreed to bring gulliver to her and have him neutered at the same time.
i brought him to the clinic past wednesday and the surgery the next day went well without any complications. the swelling turned out to be an abscess which she drained. friday, the day i was supposed to pick gulliver up again, i found a call on our answering machine in the morning. when i returned the call, i was again connected to dr. gallon who informed me that, "sadly", gulliver had "passed away" that very morning. she had obviously already done an autopsy since she was able to report that heart and lung were fine but that he was seen dragging his hind legs in the morning. apparently he then had seizures and⦠died.
according to her it could have been that he had fallen during the night and broken his back. alternatively she thought that the abscess might have gotten into his brain, causing the seizures. (i am not sure how a drained abscess can do that - so maybe a tech vet can speak to that?)
i have to admit that i was floored. the transport cage i used for him is a hamster cage from hagen and the distance between the roof and the bottom is 8 inches. i can not imagine a young, agile rat to be able to fall 8 inches and break its back because of it. this suggestion sounded rather ridiculous to me and i have to admit that such an 'explanation' did not sit well with me. however, i needed some additional medicine and made an appointment for 2:30 pm the same day.
i was finally seen at 3:15 and had to wait an additional hour for the preparation of some medicine (not joking!). these 2 hours gave me plenty of time to observe the frazzled staff - of which there were plenty - and noticed that only a few seemed to know what they were actually doing. i also realized that this hospital is an extremely noisy place. call me weird but i felt that i could also sense the angst of the animals that were being held there. i have been to many animal hospitals and no vet clinic is free of fear - but there i experienced a level of unease and a tension that i have not witnessed in other clinics.
maybe i am projecting but what did finally break the proverbial straw was the way in which gulliver's cage was returned to me. i had made every effort to supply them with an easy and quick way to keep his cage clean and had outfitted the cage with so called 'pottypads' which are usually used for puppies. the little rat would have had a small litterbox inside, an exercise wheel, a little stuffed cuddle toy and a blanket to hide in. i handed him over with food, 3 extra sheets and an additional small blanket.
changing the sheet underneath everything would have been a matter of 2 minutes, yet the cage was dirty, his small blanket was urine soaked and the toy removed from the cage. not 1 of the fresh pottypads had been used nor was his blanket exchanged. the only thing that was removed though was the cuddle toy. :-((
maybe that was done when they found him in distress but the fact that they did not bother to provide him with a fresh sheet - not even once - during these almost 3 days, i can not forgive.
i am extremely upset. such neglect is appalling to me and i am heartbroken to think that this is the way my little guys had to spend their last hours.
while all this might just be 'bad luck', i am now also left wondering if one of the staff just 'happened' to drop gulliver friday morning from much greater hight than was suggested to me by the vet. i guess, what truly happened, i will never know.
Sucks 'cause we really had a good relationship with her. They still do have another small exotic vet which is the owner of the practice. Dr. Gallon. She's been a vet since 1992.
