Painful Rat Story
I went on vacation. I don't normally go on vacation, but... well, anyway, that's not important. I went away for the past week, and I had a friend looking after my rats. She's a kind soul, and she likes animals, but she hasn't spent a lot of time with rats, and she's not a "rat person," but she thinks my guys are great, and she offered to stop by a few times during the week to make sure they had food and water, and to make sure that, you know, all four were not in need of medical care in my absence.
So when I got home from vacation, I check the note she left about the rats. Basically, she just said that she "spoiled them" and turned them into "big butterballs", and that she hadn't had any problems with the rats.
I go upstairs to my room, and the first thing I notice is that the cage is full of food. I mean probably 2-3 months' worth of food. So I'm cleaning up all the excess food, and I flip Gus onto his back to stritch his belly, but he seems to be moving weird, so I ask "Aw, what's up Gus, are you mad at me for being gone?" And when I get closer, I notice the scab behind his ear. It's dark black.
My heart drops, I snatch him up and rush to the bathroom to try to get a better look. He won't let me look at it, at all. I tried to clean it up a little with some fresh water, just to see why there's SO MUCH BLOOD all over his neck. I couldn't figure out why there was a one inch area of his neck that was covered in scab, and he wouldn't stay still to let me have a look at it.
Then I notice... he's got blood coming out of his ear.
Cue freak out hysterics as I run downstairs to call the e-vet. I explain the situation, and they ask me all sorts of questions about have there been any fights lately, etc. which of course I can't answer because I've been out of town. I don't even know if he's been eating and drinking regularly. All I've got is "the rats were no problem at all." The vet tech says she thinks it's probably a bite and to bring him in to have it cleaned up.
I rush into the other room and look over the other three boys. Not a scratch. I even fluff up their fur and check under their arms (and they weren't happy about this /at all/). So I throw a towel into a travel cage, put Gus in it and race to the e-vet (speeding is okay in emergencies, right?).
We get in and the tech brings him in back while I do the history report. Even with two vet tech's assistance, no one can figure out what the nature of the injury is, because there's so much dead tissue around the area. The vet wants to put him under so she can clean it out and figure out the best course of action. However, she says, "he's not in the best shape to begin with, so I'm worried about whether he'll wake up if we put him under." to which I reply, "if you don't clean it out, he'll die anyway" and agree to pay the bill. She tells me to go home and she'll call me when she's got the wound cleaned out.
Well, I can't go home, because I'm so distraught, so I just walk around the building and wait and wait. A little over an hour goes by and she calls me back to see what the injury looks like. He was still out cold from the gas, and they had just started to revive him, so she could show me exactly how bad it was.
This is the worst thing I've ever seen.
She cleaned out all the dead tissue (we hope) and tried to leave just healthy tissue, however, the remaining hole goes pretty deep. To show me how deep, she took a q-tip and put it into the tunnel of flesh that remains, to show me how the hole empties out into his ear cavity.
She has never in her life seen something like this. It's not an injury or a bite. It looks like maybe an infection got into his neck somehow and slowly ate away at the area until it eventually reached the surface.
She checked his teeth and they look fine. No impacted food or anything, and his jaw looks good. She says his inner ear looked "okay" but she said it's hard to tell if there's damage because of the size issue.
She gave me "vetropolycin" (which is an ophthalmic antibiotic ointment) apply to the open area every 8 hours for 10 days, baytril to give him 2x a day for 2 weeks, and metacam to give him every 12 hours for the next few days. She said to keep him in a hospital tank and keep the entire cage as clean as humanly possible, and just pray that it heals and doesn't get reinfected.
I paid the $400 vet bill (I put it on my care credit-- here's hoping I can find the money in the next 3 months *crosses fingers*), took him home, gave him a bit of chocolate, and now he's stumbling around the hospital cage, all disoriented and out of sorts. Here's a picture of him sitting all weird:
Has anyone had something like this happen? Anyone have any advice? I'm worried he's going to groom it or worse. I'm also worried it won't heal.
Success stories with this sort of injury would be greatly appreciated, too.
Here are a few photos. A BIG WARNING though, they're pretty graphic, so don't look behind the cut if you're squeemish.
This is the best "profile" sort of shot I have of the area. As you can see, he's missing part of his head:
And here's a close-up of the area:
(x-posted)
So when I got home from vacation, I check the note she left about the rats. Basically, she just said that she "spoiled them" and turned them into "big butterballs", and that she hadn't had any problems with the rats.
I go upstairs to my room, and the first thing I notice is that the cage is full of food. I mean probably 2-3 months' worth of food. So I'm cleaning up all the excess food, and I flip Gus onto his back to stritch his belly, but he seems to be moving weird, so I ask "Aw, what's up Gus, are you mad at me for being gone?" And when I get closer, I notice the scab behind his ear. It's dark black.
My heart drops, I snatch him up and rush to the bathroom to try to get a better look. He won't let me look at it, at all. I tried to clean it up a little with some fresh water, just to see why there's SO MUCH BLOOD all over his neck. I couldn't figure out why there was a one inch area of his neck that was covered in scab, and he wouldn't stay still to let me have a look at it.
Then I notice... he's got blood coming out of his ear.
Cue freak out hysterics as I run downstairs to call the e-vet. I explain the situation, and they ask me all sorts of questions about have there been any fights lately, etc. which of course I can't answer because I've been out of town. I don't even know if he's been eating and drinking regularly. All I've got is "the rats were no problem at all." The vet tech says she thinks it's probably a bite and to bring him in to have it cleaned up.
I rush into the other room and look over the other three boys. Not a scratch. I even fluff up their fur and check under their arms (and they weren't happy about this /at all/). So I throw a towel into a travel cage, put Gus in it and race to the e-vet (speeding is okay in emergencies, right?).
We get in and the tech brings him in back while I do the history report. Even with two vet tech's assistance, no one can figure out what the nature of the injury is, because there's so much dead tissue around the area. The vet wants to put him under so she can clean it out and figure out the best course of action. However, she says, "he's not in the best shape to begin with, so I'm worried about whether he'll wake up if we put him under." to which I reply, "if you don't clean it out, he'll die anyway" and agree to pay the bill. She tells me to go home and she'll call me when she's got the wound cleaned out.
Well, I can't go home, because I'm so distraught, so I just walk around the building and wait and wait. A little over an hour goes by and she calls me back to see what the injury looks like. He was still out cold from the gas, and they had just started to revive him, so she could show me exactly how bad it was.
This is the worst thing I've ever seen.
She cleaned out all the dead tissue (we hope) and tried to leave just healthy tissue, however, the remaining hole goes pretty deep. To show me how deep, she took a q-tip and put it into the tunnel of flesh that remains, to show me how the hole empties out into his ear cavity.
She has never in her life seen something like this. It's not an injury or a bite. It looks like maybe an infection got into his neck somehow and slowly ate away at the area until it eventually reached the surface.
She checked his teeth and they look fine. No impacted food or anything, and his jaw looks good. She says his inner ear looked "okay" but she said it's hard to tell if there's damage because of the size issue.
She gave me "vetropolycin" (which is an ophthalmic antibiotic ointment) apply to the open area every 8 hours for 10 days, baytril to give him 2x a day for 2 weeks, and metacam to give him every 12 hours for the next few days. She said to keep him in a hospital tank and keep the entire cage as clean as humanly possible, and just pray that it heals and doesn't get reinfected.
I paid the $400 vet bill (I put it on my care credit-- here's hoping I can find the money in the next 3 months *crosses fingers*), took him home, gave him a bit of chocolate, and now he's stumbling around the hospital cage, all disoriented and out of sorts. Here's a picture of him sitting all weird:
Has anyone had something like this happen? Anyone have any advice? I'm worried he's going to groom it or worse. I'm also worried it won't heal.
Success stories with this sort of injury would be greatly appreciated, too.
Here are a few photos. A BIG WARNING though, they're pretty graphic, so don't look behind the cut if you're squeemish.
This is the best "profile" sort of shot I have of the area. As you can see, he's missing part of his head:
And here's a close-up of the area:
(x-posted)