Wounded Radar!
So, Steve comes out to the living room to watch TV every other night or so, and at some point while he's out, he wants his rat. I fetch Radar for him, give him a flannel for Radar to mark, an empty Kleenex box for Radar to hide in and stash treats in (because Steve shares EVERYTHING with his rat!), and they have a serious cuddle for several hours. It's routine, it's nice, and they both love it. Radar systematically cleans all Steve's nails and inspects his ears for him, Steve will sit and give scritches for as long as Radar will sit still, which as we all know, can be a long time if the scritches are good :)
This has been our routine ever since Radar came to live here. It works, it makes for a happy rat and a happy hubby, and his cat can bloody well get over it ;)
Tuesday night was TV night - we had the last two parts of Tin Man on the DVR to watch (it was GREAT!!). Steve gets settled and ready and asks for Radar. I go to fetch. Radar knows it's his out time with Dad and comes running when I call his name. He's on the top shelf. He comes to the edge, and leans down and over the edge.
And I see this incredible wound. It shocks me enough for me to all but shout "Holy Shit!!", which of course, sets Steve off into a What's Wrong and Who Do I Have To Shoot frenzy. Radar has a . . . SPLIT in his skin across the back of his neck/shoulders. It's about an inch and a half long, and you can see MEAT. If he's not looking down, you can't even tell it's there. It's perfect. Straight edges, uniform depth, very clean and neat.
The freaky thing is, Radar is not in pain, and there is NO blood. I tear the cage apart looking for what could have cut him like that - nothing. And there is NO blood. Anywhere. WTF??
So, since there's no blood, and he's not in pain, we unfreak and give him a liberal smear of neosporin. He tolerates it, and doesn't try to groom it off. He's such a good boy. We do our usual routine, but when Radar goes back to the cage, I put him in the bottom section and raise the drawbridge to isolate him. Don't want the others to groom off the neosporin, OR to make the wound worse.
I get up at 8 the next morning and call the vet. Got a 2:30 appointment, since it's not REALLY an emergency, and I want to be there. Otherwise I could drop Radar off at any time and the vet would see him at his first available moment. I love my vet.
So, 2:00 comes, and I pack Radar in his travel bag with his flannel and kleenex box and off we go. He was SUCH a good boy! Unbelievably good. Doc T picked him up and Radar grabbed a hold on his shirt and scampered up to his shoulder and proceeded to investigate his ear. Doc T is a pleasant guy, but I don't think I'd ever seen him laugh before. He got Radar under a little control and took a good look at the wound. He said that if it was fresh, he'd want to put stitches in, but since it was old and the edges had started to heal, for stitches he'd have to debreed (or how ever you spell it) the wound, basically cut the edges off to make it fresh again. Bacci that! He also said that if we left it alone, it would heal just fine from the inside out. If we secured the edges together, it might make it faster and help avoid infection.
So Radar got stapled. Two metal staples. Doc T says it probably feels like getting your ear pierced. First, I held Radar as he got his hair clipped, then while Doc T scrubbed the hell out of the wound. That had to hurt, I could smell the alcohol in the soap, but Radar just made little mewing noises and stayed fairly still in my hands. Then came the stapler. With the first one, Radar jumped and let out SUCH a scream. I felt so bad. But the good little boy didn't bite, didn't even fear poop! (although he let one huge one out with the soap). For the second staple, he had a better idea of what was coming, and didn't jump, and didn't even scream loudly. As soon as I took one hand away, he was up and hiding in my hair.
So, now the poor baby is on antibiotics (some sulfa based, not baytril, thank goodness, AND it's cherry flavored!), and STILL isolated, just in case the bigger boys try to chew off the staples. Poor baby is lonely, and the other boys are mad at me, but until Radar starts to heal a bit, I am SO not risking leaving them all together. I do let them visit in my lap though, so I can keep guard.
OH! Doc says that it looks like a tooth or a claw got caught just under the outer layer of skin and just ripped. Not an intentional wound, and nothing life threatening, as long as there was no infection. Thank goodness for small favors.
I thought to take a pic of the wound before Doc came back with the stapler, it's not a great pic, being cell phone quality, but it's an idea of what I found. And not too gross!
He's not feeling too cooperative right now and won't let me take a pic of his staples, so I may edit that in later. In the mean time, here's a pic of Steve and Radar cuddling on the bed (which is what they do on days where Steve does NOT get up to watch TV).
And if those two images show up huge for you, something is BS in LJ, because I deleted them, trimmed them to 400 pixels, then reuploaded them. I still can't get them to display right, and it's ticking me off.
This has been our routine ever since Radar came to live here. It works, it makes for a happy rat and a happy hubby, and his cat can bloody well get over it ;)
Tuesday night was TV night - we had the last two parts of Tin Man on the DVR to watch (it was GREAT!!). Steve gets settled and ready and asks for Radar. I go to fetch. Radar knows it's his out time with Dad and comes running when I call his name. He's on the top shelf. He comes to the edge, and leans down and over the edge.
And I see this incredible wound. It shocks me enough for me to all but shout "Holy Shit!!", which of course, sets Steve off into a What's Wrong and Who Do I Have To Shoot frenzy. Radar has a . . . SPLIT in his skin across the back of his neck/shoulders. It's about an inch and a half long, and you can see MEAT. If he's not looking down, you can't even tell it's there. It's perfect. Straight edges, uniform depth, very clean and neat.
The freaky thing is, Radar is not in pain, and there is NO blood. I tear the cage apart looking for what could have cut him like that - nothing. And there is NO blood. Anywhere. WTF??
So, since there's no blood, and he's not in pain, we unfreak and give him a liberal smear of neosporin. He tolerates it, and doesn't try to groom it off. He's such a good boy. We do our usual routine, but when Radar goes back to the cage, I put him in the bottom section and raise the drawbridge to isolate him. Don't want the others to groom off the neosporin, OR to make the wound worse.
I get up at 8 the next morning and call the vet. Got a 2:30 appointment, since it's not REALLY an emergency, and I want to be there. Otherwise I could drop Radar off at any time and the vet would see him at his first available moment. I love my vet.
So, 2:00 comes, and I pack Radar in his travel bag with his flannel and kleenex box and off we go. He was SUCH a good boy! Unbelievably good. Doc T picked him up and Radar grabbed a hold on his shirt and scampered up to his shoulder and proceeded to investigate his ear. Doc T is a pleasant guy, but I don't think I'd ever seen him laugh before. He got Radar under a little control and took a good look at the wound. He said that if it was fresh, he'd want to put stitches in, but since it was old and the edges had started to heal, for stitches he'd have to debreed (or how ever you spell it) the wound, basically cut the edges off to make it fresh again. Bacci that! He also said that if we left it alone, it would heal just fine from the inside out. If we secured the edges together, it might make it faster and help avoid infection.
So Radar got stapled. Two metal staples. Doc T says it probably feels like getting your ear pierced. First, I held Radar as he got his hair clipped, then while Doc T scrubbed the hell out of the wound. That had to hurt, I could smell the alcohol in the soap, but Radar just made little mewing noises and stayed fairly still in my hands. Then came the stapler. With the first one, Radar jumped and let out SUCH a scream. I felt so bad. But the good little boy didn't bite, didn't even fear poop! (although he let one huge one out with the soap). For the second staple, he had a better idea of what was coming, and didn't jump, and didn't even scream loudly. As soon as I took one hand away, he was up and hiding in my hair.
So, now the poor baby is on antibiotics (some sulfa based, not baytril, thank goodness, AND it's cherry flavored!), and STILL isolated, just in case the bigger boys try to chew off the staples. Poor baby is lonely, and the other boys are mad at me, but until Radar starts to heal a bit, I am SO not risking leaving them all together. I do let them visit in my lap though, so I can keep guard.
OH! Doc says that it looks like a tooth or a claw got caught just under the outer layer of skin and just ripped. Not an intentional wound, and nothing life threatening, as long as there was no infection. Thank goodness for small favors.
I thought to take a pic of the wound before Doc came back with the stapler, it's not a great pic, being cell phone quality, but it's an idea of what I found. And not too gross!
He's not feeling too cooperative right now and won't let me take a pic of his staples, so I may edit that in later. In the mean time, here's a pic of Steve and Radar cuddling on the bed (which is what they do on days where Steve does NOT get up to watch TV).
And if those two images show up huge for you, something is BS in LJ, because I deleted them, trimmed them to 400 pixels, then reuploaded them. I still can't get them to display right, and it's ticking me off.