Pros and Cons of Today
First, a bit of good news -- I have now sold five (count 'em, 5!) dvds on half.com! Yay! And I made a whopping 13 bucks for Batman Returns -- how cool is that??!! That's a LOT for that movie. I can't imagine why its "going rate" is so much, especially when you consider the big Batman boxed set that came out last year...
And now for bad news. My pregnancy is now officially "high risk." My blood pressure is still high, so my doc prescribed a low dosage of a medication that i'll have to take twice a day. She also ordered another ultrasound, which normally they don't do at this stage, b/c she wants to make sure Micah is still growing like he should be despite my blood pressure. I also had to get some bloodwork done today, plus, starting in 4 weeks, I will have to go down to the hospital once a week, every week, to have a "nonstress test" where they will hook me up to some kind of thing that monitors mine and the baby's heart rate to check for abnormalities. I really hate that I'm having to go on medication--I don't want Micah to have any side-effects. Though, I suppose there would be worse side-effects (preeclampsia, for one) if I didn't take the meds. Also, going to the hospital for 30 min. a week causes a problem as well, since their latest appt. is at 3:00 and I'm still at the school at that time. The nurse, fortunately, said she would speak to the techs in the morning to see if they could work something out for me. I'm REALLY hoping they'll be able to...
Warning: The next part contains some slightly gross, technical-speak about my rat's autopsy. (Amy, don't read this part).
Lastly, I got the results of Ulla's necropsy/autopsy today. They did a second one this afternoon because the first one had unusual results... Upon the first, they saw that she had died with food in her mouth, probably from choking while attempting to vomit, poor girl. Also, she had what's called bowel stasis, meaning her insides were totally impacted with food and she wasn't able to have a bowel movement. Also, her GI tract looked inflamed, though there were no bulges (which would be caused by obstruction from a foreign object). After finding this out, the vet asked if he could go into the intestines to see what more he could find out, as it's very odd to see bowel stasis in a rat who DIDN'T swallow a foreign object. Of course I said I would like him to go further, so I got word this afternoon that she had food impacted all the way from her mouth to her rear end....totally stopped up. Poor Ulla! The food had been broken down, so it wasn't from that, but oddly enough, half of her stomach had lots of blood in it and the other half had none whatsoever, like blood hadn't been getting to it for some time. Also, there was blood in her bladder--very odd, he said--and this probably means that there was sort sort of bacteria (septicemia??) that had gotten into her bloodstream. And in rats, infections spread very quickly (which is why companies do testing on them, because they can get results quickly from an experiment). So, all in all, there were several factors that contributed. I asked what caused all of this, and he said he still believes it had to have something to do with her diet, although she has been eating the same food (which came highly recommended from a different vet, whom I trust a lot) for over a month. Before that, she had some occasional seed-type food, but she hardly ever ate it...she would knock the bowl into the floor of the cage and refuse to eat it, lol, so I let her just have the block-type food she'd been eating for some time. I guess he thinks that she may have been especially sensitive to the food change... otherwise, I don't see how she could have gotten sick from it, since it was so long ago that she had a different type of food (and it was only given occasionally at that). Either that, or for whatever reason, she wasn't getting enough fiber (which shouldn't happen w/that type of food anyhow). So, I guess I will never know the technical cause, though I am very, VERY glad to know it wasn't anything I did or could have done. They said that even if we'd caught the problem earlier, there still may not have been anything we could do. Possibly surgery, but even that might not have helped, especially w/blood not getting to her stomach like that. Still, Ulla will be missed...
And now for bad news. My pregnancy is now officially "high risk." My blood pressure is still high, so my doc prescribed a low dosage of a medication that i'll have to take twice a day. She also ordered another ultrasound, which normally they don't do at this stage, b/c she wants to make sure Micah is still growing like he should be despite my blood pressure. I also had to get some bloodwork done today, plus, starting in 4 weeks, I will have to go down to the hospital once a week, every week, to have a "nonstress test" where they will hook me up to some kind of thing that monitors mine and the baby's heart rate to check for abnormalities. I really hate that I'm having to go on medication--I don't want Micah to have any side-effects. Though, I suppose there would be worse side-effects (preeclampsia, for one) if I didn't take the meds. Also, going to the hospital for 30 min. a week causes a problem as well, since their latest appt. is at 3:00 and I'm still at the school at that time. The nurse, fortunately, said she would speak to the techs in the morning to see if they could work something out for me. I'm REALLY hoping they'll be able to...
Warning: The next part contains some slightly gross, technical-speak about my rat's autopsy. (Amy, don't read this part).
Lastly, I got the results of Ulla's necropsy/autopsy today. They did a second one this afternoon because the first one had unusual results... Upon the first, they saw that she had died with food in her mouth, probably from choking while attempting to vomit, poor girl. Also, she had what's called bowel stasis, meaning her insides were totally impacted with food and she wasn't able to have a bowel movement. Also, her GI tract looked inflamed, though there were no bulges (which would be caused by obstruction from a foreign object). After finding this out, the vet asked if he could go into the intestines to see what more he could find out, as it's very odd to see bowel stasis in a rat who DIDN'T swallow a foreign object. Of course I said I would like him to go further, so I got word this afternoon that she had food impacted all the way from her mouth to her rear end....totally stopped up. Poor Ulla! The food had been broken down, so it wasn't from that, but oddly enough, half of her stomach had lots of blood in it and the other half had none whatsoever, like blood hadn't been getting to it for some time. Also, there was blood in her bladder--very odd, he said--and this probably means that there was sort sort of bacteria (septicemia??) that had gotten into her bloodstream. And in rats, infections spread very quickly (which is why companies do testing on them, because they can get results quickly from an experiment). So, all in all, there were several factors that contributed. I asked what caused all of this, and he said he still believes it had to have something to do with her diet, although she has been eating the same food (which came highly recommended from a different vet, whom I trust a lot) for over a month. Before that, she had some occasional seed-type food, but she hardly ever ate it...she would knock the bowl into the floor of the cage and refuse to eat it, lol, so I let her just have the block-type food she'd been eating for some time. I guess he thinks that she may have been especially sensitive to the food change... otherwise, I don't see how she could have gotten sick from it, since it was so long ago that she had a different type of food (and it was only given occasionally at that). Either that, or for whatever reason, she wasn't getting enough fiber (which shouldn't happen w/that type of food anyhow). So, I guess I will never know the technical cause, though I am very, VERY glad to know it wasn't anything I did or could have done. They said that even if we'd caught the problem earlier, there still may not have been anything we could do. Possibly surgery, but even that might not have helped, especially w/blood not getting to her stomach like that. Still, Ulla will be missed...