Ducky - Last night - Palliative Help Needed

[M0onkist]

Welp, she has a cold - it was kind of so-so at first, in terms of symptoms, and I think I did catch it quite early overall. I moved her up to my room to keep an ear on her, and when I was sure it wasn't her occasional weird noises I took her in.

But I think more importantly she seemed to have lost a *bit* of weight post-Christmas - totally not surprising given the fact that she was 28 months going on 29. I gave her lots of treats (carrots every day, a tiny scrape of cheese now and then, and more recently pieces of banana), and I think she did gain some weight back.

Anyway, when we went to the vet of course they weighed her. She was about 400 grams or thereabouts the last time she visited which was in the fall, and this time she weighed 338 grams - not good!! (calculated to be a 15% weight loss) I had no idea she'd lost so much. She's always been on the chubby side (well, 'pudge' or 'dumpling' were my favorite nicknames for her, and 'stuffed turkey' wouldn't have been out of place!). Dr. Luckwaldt didn't seem too concerned other than that she was definitely thinner than before, but I don't think she's outside what's normal for her body's size and age etc.

Sooooo... I want to fatten her back up! Or at the very least make sure she doesn't lose any more weight. I bought Ensure (strawberry, regular caloric content), some baby food, and blueberry puffs. I also have a bottle of the Green Mush coming in at some point soon, although it's not fattening (I think it will still help her overall). She's on Oxbow currently, but I could get in Harlan 2014 or 2018 if my revered experts believe that's the way to go.

A small digression, if you'll bear with me:

She's my bright, incredibly plucky madam, who has a Havanese admirer. Lovell adores the fact that she lives up in my room with us now, and he gets very concerned if I take her in her travel cage down so I can replace the bedding - he always fusses, whines and paws at his pen until I bring over Ducky for a gentle sniff to make sure she's really okay after the 'ordeal' of cleaning! Then, once he's satisfied, he just settles right down to sleep. Incidentally when she first came up, he actually left us while we were having dinner and just sat two feet away from the desk where her cage was, babysitting her while we ate. We did the super-careful introduction that Dr. Munn recommended, and I think it's worked amazingly well. Ducky just sees him as a very exuberant, funny wet tongue that occasionally gets in her way when she's walking around on my bed, and I'm pretty sure Lovell thinks she's some kind of dog - at the very least though, he sees her as his 'bestest' animal friend in the whole wide world.

Once he was on my bed when I took Ducky out of her cage, and he got so excited he started dancing for her and fell head-first off the bed!

Here's Lovell saying goodbye to Ducky for the Christmas vacation:
[img=center:g4kgn45i]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g455/Patricia_Kierans/AndDucky2_zpse7c802c5.jpg[/img:g4kgn45i]

 

[jorats]

I'd definitely keep her on Oxbow. You'd want to fatten her up with good fat, not with protein. Protein is very taxing on the liver and kidneys at her age. I would add olive oil to her soft foods.
She's a pretty little thing and lucky to have such a loyal pup as her friend.

 

[M0onkist]

I've got a very good organic olive oil that I'll add, and thank you for reminding me about the protein vs. fat, Jo! She's suddenly decided she LOVES medicine (either that, or they changed the flavor at the vet's!). As long as I give her the syringe through the bars of the cage, she goes nuts and simply will not relinquish it, and will try to yank it inside the cage with her (presumably to divest it of more yumminess).

Dr. Luckwaldt said he could hear three 'notes' to her noises (it's got an odd musicality to it, go figure!). We discussed at length what kind of treatment she should have for her cold - I feel blessed in a way because we know her mother, father and aunt, and her sisters, and all had wretched lungs their whole lives, so we know to treat it aggressively. We decided to try zithro to see if it works better than baytril, and to continue it indefinitely in once-every-three-day-doses (apparently an amount will build up in her system after the initial treatment and it takes 3 days to need more topping up). The doxy we'll just do for the 3 weeks, and see how she turns out then.

 

[jorats]

You are going to try the pulse treatment with zithro? I really don't recommend it. She might crash after only one day of missed dose. Are you starting with a real treatment of zithro? What worked for us is twice a day for a week and then once a day for 3 weeks. I would only do the pulse treatment after that initial treatment. Even then... In the past we've done pulse treatments and it was disastrous. Unless Ducky is not that sick and you are hoping to keep it from flaring up worse. Then it's worth a try.

 

[RattusNorvegicus]

I would have to agree with Jo. I would give it twice a day for now and see how she does. Can you post a video of her and her breathing to give a better idea of what her condition is?

You could also supplement soy infant formula. My girls love it and it really encourages them to eat when they're not feeling very well.

 

[M0onkist]

Here's what they gave me (if the description helps, I don't know):

0.08 mL Zithro once daily for 14 days, after that once every 3rd day for another 14 days and reevaluate
0.07 mL Baytril twice daily for 21 days

It's funny, I thought they were giving me doxy and not Baytril... have a feeling I should be calling them about that (though what they can do about it now, I have no clue, because Toronto is completely socked in with snow and I'd never reach them).

 

[jorats]

What is her weight? The fact that she's on Baytril daily, I'm not so concerned anymore about the Zithro unless if she was extremely sick.

 

[M0onkist]

It's 338g now, it used to be 400g maybe... three months ago?

She's adoring all the extra Ensure and baby cereal at least. Still making funny noises - she has musical not-quite-honk (a little like Crumbilina's Lily). No crackling or funny inside-lung noises though.

 

[jorats]

Is your Baytril a higher concentration than the typical 25mg/ml? Some people have the 50 mg/ml.
And your Zithro, is it 100 mg/5ml.?

Also, I was talking to my sister who also has a very old lady, she's 32 months old and super skinny and she wants to fatten her up as well. So she looked into it and will be adding freshly ground flaxseed to her baby cereal. Flaxseed has incredible dietary powers. It's loaded in good fats and the protein is only 12%.

 

[M0onkist]

The baytril is 50mg/mL, the zithro doesn't actually say - it says it's a 600mg box, but I think that's their compounding dispensary amount as opposed to what's in the bottle. The one I'm to reconstitute later has me adding 3.75mL, though I doubt that narrows it down much.

ETA: She definitely seems ignorant of the fact that I've added the ground flaxseed to the baby cereal - she's just too happy chowing down, and I'm reasonably certain that she'd drink 5cc's of Ensure in one sitting if I let her, lol

 

[M0onkist]

Here's a video of her breathing right now - I couldn't get both her and the sound into the movie, so it's quite dull from a visual standpoint, and you might have to turn up the volume a bit to get the full octave range of her noises. Ignore the crunching in the background, Lovell decided it was dinnertime.

I think she's seriously enjoying my campaign to fatten her up, at least she never seems to turn down one of the delicacies I offer her! The ground flaxseed is going down without any notice, Jo, which is good of course. I'll have to figure out where we put that darn kitchen scale so I can start weighing her and keeping track of this. Certainly every time I pick her up her belly is full full full. I was also thinking, if they weren't so sticky, that dates would be an ideal foodstuff. But problem is they are sticky, so I'd be afraid of them gumming up her teeth or something.

[BBvideo 450,375:1kzw36t1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM_EMGFGKCY[/BBvideo:1kzw36t1]

 

[jorats]

Boy do I know that sound. I've had plenty of rats with it, some were treated and others lived with it for what feels like forever.
Lucky Ducky, enjoying her new diet plan. lol

 

[M0onkist]

Got the nicest kind of Skype video call tonight - I'm visiting my grandmother's (but coming back tomorrow), and my sister's been spoiling Ducky rotten. My Dad brought Ducky into the dining room while they were having dinner, then Skyped me and set it up so I could talk to them and watch Ducky. :dance:

[img=center:3h47a8jq]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g455/Patricia_Kierans/DuckySkype_zps3ba38f1f.jpg[/img:3h47a8jq]

 

[M0onkist]

She did okay on the zithro, but it didn't do what the bay/doxy combo usually does. She had a bit of time off the pulse treatment and her lungs were okay - not stellar, but about as good as they'd ever get for her.

She's gone back downhill though in the last couple of days - weight's down a bit and her appetite isn't quite as strong, though she'll still drink Ensure when I give it to her daily. I got the bay/doxy combo from the vet today, so we'll do a full course of treatment and see how she's doing. Although she sounds like a walking noise machine, she isn't coughing, and hasn't sneezed once - it's just that ucky, gucky, icky, jaw-grinding (on my part) noise that puts my nerves on edge. At least on the upside, Lovell isn't freaking out like he did the first time she had a cold - I'm hoping that's a good sign?

 

[M0onkist]

Currently chilling on the bed beside me (her being stationary at all on the bed is a bit unusual), all curled up in a bonding pouch made by Pink in Alaska a few years back.

 

[crumbilina]

:heart:

Such a pretty little girlie!
I hope she gets better! Have you tried a combo of doxy, baytril and zithro? I had Lily on that and it seemed to keep her stable for a nice long time. She would have remained stable too had it not been for her PT.

*fingers crossed*

 

[M0onkist]

Intriguing notion... they're closed right now so she'll have to just be on bay/doxy today (started yesterday AM). Maybe I'll ask for that if she doesn't sound better tomorrow.

This was her at the end of the evening - a little more bright-eyed, I think!

 

[M0onkist]

Well, as with all things, the bad does come with some good - Ducky's a pretty permanent fixture on my bed right now (which also doubles as my study space, I find sitting on the bed's best for my back, oddly enough, probably because there's no back support to try to lean against). She has Pink's travel pouch which she likes having sandwiched under my body pillow (I prop it up a bit so it isn't crushing her) - gives it an even more cave-like feel, I think, and also really keeps her warm - if I fish her out she's like a little hot potato!

I make sure she has time in her cage for toiletry things, and she gets a bonus of being given extra Ensure when she's being extra cute - which right now seems like every other minute! I think I've taken more pictures of her in the past three days than I have in the past three months.

Her weight is back up again - I'd discontinued giving her Ensure daily and she lost weight, so I think the old lady requires it - and thus, shall have it!

Anyone have a conversion for rat ages and human ages? I've been operating under the assumption that one rat month is equal to three human years (making her 96), but a bunch of Googled sites say she's anywhere from 74.5-80something.

Her breathing isn't much better as far as I can tell, but I'm still very hopeful - we'll give it another three days (I'm so smashed with work the earliest I could see Dr. Munn would be Friday anyway), but at least she's on fresh abs. I'm not honestly sure what they would add, other than the zithro - it's been so long since Mr. Honeycomb needed the theophylline I can't remember what his breathing was like to require it.

Anyway, here are some photos from today:

Doesn't she make the most perfect study buddy?

Just... that spot... right there...

 

[RattusNorvegicus]

I watched the video you had posted of her breathing again and it sounds exactly like my pulm. abscesses girlies. I am sorry if it was asked before but is Ducky's chest firm and barreled?

 

[M0onkist]

I'm not entirely sure just how pliable a rat's ribcage *should* be - and I have no reference right now, as Ducky will be my last rat for the next while and stubbornly refused to be paired up with anyone else. But yeah, I would say it's fairly firm... What strikes me is that you mentioned pulmonary abscesses - her mother and aunt, and I think probably her father all had them. Most likely their abscesses were worsened by terrible living conditions before their rescue, something my girls were fortunate to avoid.

Petrie, Ducky's sister (I adopted the three girls from that rescue litter), died of pneumonia at a very young age, just a little over a year old - super sudden and very frightening. Cera was spared that, through a rapid-onset PT, but the lungs of all three were never too stellar.