Well, the news started out good and then went to bad possibly really bad. She sedated him to aspirated the lump and take an x-ray. The tech then came and asked me to came back to where he was - "Oh crap, they want me to make a decision on whether or not to wake him up, damn its that bad!" That is the thought in my head. No, the computers were down so I had to go back there to see the x-rays, alright I'm breathing again. Tech could of handled that better. Anyway, seems like just a tooth abscess, but there is bone damage to the jaw. She is going to look at his teeth and take out the bad one, lancet it and clean it up. He has an arrhythmia (suspected that), but heart isn't enlarged some fluid in the area.
No loose teeth, nothing to pull. Found another pus sack in his mouth and drained that. Bad news still has the hard lump under is chin and jaw has bone damage. He was in pain even under sedation when she opened his jaw he started twitching a leg had to give pain medication by injection. She looked at the pus under microscope there is a lot of white blood cells and something less indicating infection, but there are also cells that most likely indicate cancer - bone cancer! We will know in 48-72 hours - I had to know so I did have them sent to a pathologist. Its possible its not, but its most likely these abscesses were from an infected tumor (the lump under his chin)
So for now he is on tramadol, metacam, doxy, baytril, and another antibiotic (starts with a M). He is on soft foods - baby food, yogurt, etc. We can offer him hard food and see if he'll eat it, but it will probably be too painful for him. If it is bone cancer we will let him go - I will not let him linger in pain or let him exist drugged up to try and ease the pain. Of course, if anyone has any other suggestion or experience with this feel free to let me know. She also told me we should write a book on everything that could go wrong with rats.. My response, then no one would want them as pets!
Axe goes in tomorrow since he isn't responding to the doxy/baytril he's been on for month ... cannot wait for that diagnosis!