Just numb.....
Today should have been a good day. I took today off, and I am finished with dayshift for the next month. Instead, today was like some nightmare come to life. Old Man Weasel has been having seizures for several months now, Long and short of it, as ferrets age, they sometimes fall victim to a type of diabetes. Since they have such a small digestive tract, they process their food very quickly, Sometimes they begin to "crash" when their blood sugar suddenly drops and have a seizure. He'd been having them once and awhile, but he always came out of them fine. The past week hes had about one a day. Sunday night, he had one and came out of it and Booch put him in the waterbed to sleep. He always loves to snuggle under the covers. When I went in to go to bed, he was laying on his side having really bad spasms. not like his seizures, his head would snap back, over and over. We tried everything to bring him around but nothing worked. Neither of us slept much Sunday night, up with him. Monday I had to work my last dayshift. Bumblenuts was a dick like usual, but I ignored him. When I got home, the Old Man was still spasming and since it had been 24 hours, we made the difficult decision to put him down. I crumbled up a Percocet and dissolved it in water and gave him several droppers. The poor old guy fought all the way. He stopped spasming and shivered like he does in his seizures and very briefly, we thought he might even pull out. We covered him up last night before bed and he seemed almost asleep. This morning he was gone. At least he passed away in his sleep and didnt suffer. It really tore us both up, since hes been wonderful since we got him. Never got into anything, always loving and sweet and he loved to go outside just to roll in the grass and dig a little. We'll miss his laugh. We buried him below the garden under a wild cherry tree with the others who have passed on. Then, as if this hadnt already been a shitty day, it got even worse. I was cleaning up and doing a load of laundry, the sheets and matress pad for the waterbed. Gandhi, our other free range weasel who lived in the bedroom with the Old Man wanted to come out in the living room. He had been looking all over for Old Man Weasel and I guess he wanted to see if he was out here. I carried the stuff in the laundry room and closed the door. When I walked to the door he was all the way on the other side of the living room. I laid the pad on the floor with the white stuff and put the sheets in the washer. Later when I came back I put the sheets in the dryer and picked up the whites and the matress pad and put them in the washer. I hadnt seen Gandhi in abit but I figured he had gone under the couch and went to sleep. When I looked for him and couldnt find him I thought maybe he went back in the bedroom. It was only when I went to take the stuff out of the washer I found him. He had somehow crawled in the matress pad and I guess went to sleep. I never felt him, heard him or saw him move. I feel worse than awful knowing it was my fault he died. I only wish I had someway to undo what happened, but I cant. So now tomorrow, I'll bury him beside Old Man Weasel and they'll be together again. I feel like hell and I should feel even worse, but truthfully, its like being shell shocked, I'm beyond even being numb. I cant help but feel that I've failed them. I was supposed to make sure they were always taken care of and 2 of them died in one day. I just dont have a description of my feelings right now....