Olive -- she's gone.

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I got up this morning, and while the other rats were still sleeping, Olive was sitting by herself, eating! Her breathing still seems really rapid, but it's only been a couple days on the combo of meds, so maybe that's not unusual. She's getting quiet pushy about having anything put in her mouth and shoves the syringe away with her foot.

Oh, and the weirdest thing...I'd heard horror stories about the chlorpalm and how bitter it is and how hard to give to them. Olive LOVES it...bites and licks at the syringe to get every last drop. Weird, eh?
 
fexpress said:
I got up this morning, and while the other rats were still sleeping, Olive was sitting by herself, eating! Her breathing still seems really rapid, but it's only been a couple days on the combo of meds, so maybe that's not unusual. She's getting quiet pushy about having anything put in her mouth and shoves the syringe away with her foot.

Oh, and the weirdest thing...I'd heard horror stories about the chlorpalm and how bitter it is and how hard to give to them. Olive LOVES it...bites and licks at the syringe to get every last drop. Weird, eh?
Click to expand...

I'm glad to hear she's improving.

How many doses of Chlorpalm have you given? They usually start rejecting it after it upsets their stomach.
 
Well, we had a brief respite from the sadness around here, but last night when I took Olive out to give her the medication, she had major porphyrin coming from her eyes, and her breathing has gotten wheezy/clicky again. She doesn't appear to have "given up" yet, but I can't think anything good is happening. Also, after reading through the forum, I noticed her ribs feel very "hard" in comparison to our healthy rats, and her feet (actually all of her) are really cold. I'm starting to think pulmonary abscess, or maybe her heart.

The vet didn't hear anything heart/lung related when we were in last, but it sounds like that's not unusual. She can't see us until tomorrow afternoon, which I think will be ok as Olive's not in any specific distress right now. I just hope if it's pulmonary abscess that they don't rupture and cause her a lot of panic before I get her to the vet tomorrow. That is not the way I would choose for her to go.

I'm really sad because I know I'm going to have to do the right thing here, and that is SO hard to do.
 
Well...

We got to the vet this morning, and the vet thought that because Olive is quite young, it was worth trying some dexamethasone and theophylline (and some sub-Q fluids while she was at the vet today) before we give up and put her to sleep. The vet also noticed that her left lung seems awfully congested today, whereas the last time Olive was in, there was some wheezing but no real congestion. And she's lost another 30 grams, which is 10% of her body weight. But, the vet said she seems bright and alert and she's still relatively young so we could consider giving treatment a try for now. She's in agreement that it is probably pulmonary abscesses, though and there is no way to predict how this will play out, other than it will wind up being the end sooner or later.

So, we're trying treating for the moment. Olive's breathing seems a little bit better today, not panicky like yesterday, although still quite rapid. And she's actually gone to the water bottle to drink on her own for the first time in a week, and drank a whole bunch of Ensure, ate a little bit of cake (I know it's not health food, but at this point I'm going to feed her whatever she will eat), tried chewing on a chicken bone that the others had been given to chew. She seems to be sleeping intermittently today as well, which she was unable to do at all yesterday because her breathing was so bad.

So I have a few more days with my little monkey, even though I know the end isn't far away.


 
Some of my worse cases of pneumonia it took over a week to get a good change that was worth it. Just hang in there. If that doesnt work you could ask for zithro and baytril.
 
So Olive has been guzzling Ensure every time I offer it to her tonight (about every hour or so). Is that ok? Can she have too much of it?
 
I dont think so. I have one boy who is pretty much staying alive on ensure, he eats small bits of other food but ensure is the one thing he will eat constantly. I give the sick one ensure when they want it.
 
I'm impressed that your vet wants to go at it aggressively. I've noticed that most vet would just advise to put down. Some rats with pulmonary abscesses will become status quo and adapt to the limited lung capacity but do find quality of life for some time. It may be short or longer than expected... give her lots of cuddles for me.
 
Olive's desire to fight is exactly why she came home with me. I kept looking at her and it was clear she wasn't "done" yet.

She is MUCH improved this morning, so much so that I found her sleeping with all her buddies in the hammock when I got up this morning (she's been sleeping solo for a couple weeks now). Even the fact that she was sleeping was a big deal, her breathing has been so bad that she has seemed to not be able to get comfortable enough to sleep for the previous 2 days, or not for very long.

In the meantime, she's drinking a ton from the water bottle, and lots of Ensure (every time I offer it), and she's been sniffing around the food dish although hasn't actually eaten anything that I've seen yet, but she's showing some interest which is a start. And she's gained 20 grams since yesterday (she had lost 35 over the last week) so that's positive too. And she's starting to act feisty again, pushing the syringe away and not wanting me to hold her too close and not wanting to sit still at all. All in all, it's a huge improvement since yesterday before the medication kicked in.

I am worried that this will all have been because of the dexamethasone and not the theophylline but the next couple days will tell.
 
She is such a cutie. Have you tried giving her baby cereal in Ensure? Maybe she's ready to eat that on her own, that's why she's pushing the syringe away.
 
I went and bought baby cereal today, and her breathing is getting worse again. It's still 3 hours until I can give her another dose of theophylline, and even then, I have no idea if it's going to help. Does anyone know how long dexamethasone lasts in the system? I would have thought we'd have gotten 2-3 days out of it, from what the vet said, but it's only been a little over a day.

Crap. Pardon my mouth. I just want her to get better and that may not be possible. :sad3:
 
We're on our way to the vet at 10:00 this morning. Please keep us in your thoughts. This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. :sad3:
 

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