Waldo

Waldo - September 2011 to April 11, 2013 :(

3 Little boys in an ad...blind since birth the owner said, free to good home. "Will need care"...a month after emailing got this, then I tried again...

Hi Shelagh,

No, I didn't have the heart to give them to someone. My veterinarian told me that they would be fine, but their eyes are bleeding now. The only other vet in the Niagara region that handles exotics is booked until after the holidays. This is a big problem because I have the three boys and a single girl I was going to keep, all with the same problem. I also have a girl who just develeped a head tilt. I think you e-mailed me before and I'm sorry I didn't get back to you, but people have been really mean. I'm just trying to do the right thing, but I can't afford surgeries for them. I've been hoping for a Christmas miracle, but no luck. I guess I'll just keep them comfortable and see what happens. Do you know much about rats? Maybe you have some suggestions if you do? I'm sorry, I forgot to take the ad down, didn't mean to waste your time.

Thanks,
Sam

There are four hairless rats with eye problems total - one is a girl that I was going to keep (I only keep females because I don't believe in breeding when there's such a problem out there already - the mom was unknowingly pregnant when I got her). The ones with the eye problems all have red eyes - it's so hard to describe, but it almost seems as though the eyes are shrunken and then it looks like a piece of something is sticking out of them, but I don't want to touch it for fear it's attached to the entire eyeball.

After much discussion it turned out that there was 2 egos involved, someone who" "rescued": and the same someone who bred. It was actually very amusing emailing both of these "individuals" at the same time LOL

So the nakies arrived, and I quickly found out the smallest nakie boy could not live with his bigger brothers.

Waldo in front, Melvin to right and little Norbert behind










Waldo was painfully chosen with the help of M0onkist...she was holding him and asking him if he liked "this name"...nip, "no"...and we went through a lot of names :cheeky: Walso was lucky with only one eye affected.



Waldo, Melvin and Yara were first to the vets and all of them got their eyes flushed and the debris removed...Melvin sadly was booked for an enucleation for the next week. Poor babies! I just cringe at the thought of stuff in nakie's eyes and how painful it must be. Everyone was put on antibiotics, drops, ointments for those poor eyes



Unfortunately that was not the end of the saga of these poor rats...the debris filled back up again so I was told they had to live in as lint-free environment as possible...no fleece, no bedding, no litter in litter boxes. AF4er many different tries (sheets smell nasty quickly and weren't practical) they ended up on vet bed, and had broadcloth hammocks lovingly bought and made for them through the efforts of The Rat Stash and Cozy Corner and this helped a lot.

Waldo recovered beautifully from his ordeal, except his bad eye always had a clouding in the bottom of it which worsened later on. He was my big healthy boy for so long.







Totally bonded with his brother Melvin lying on top of him



Waldo has his own thing going on, he was a little more standoffish than his brothers...who all wanted to play...he wanted to but probably thought it too undignified to toss his head, bounce and run like crazy...you would see him forget and start to bounce then stop LOL.

Then I found him in his cage struggling to breathe, and the downward spiral began. He lost severe amounts of weight, my stock boy became so thin and bone-y but was mostly still bright until the last week. 








I got him a very special veterinary diet for maintaining sickies which he loved but I couldn't get him to gain weight. Then the respiratory attacks started. We fought through those and then I got him into the vet on Thursday for a full workup. He was x-rayed and we discovered one of his lungs was kaput but the other was okay. We were going to try yet another regimen of drugs on a trial basis but he would be coming home. An hour later I saw the vet's office calling yet again and my heart sunk. Even though he was in oxygen, nebulizing, etc...he was regressing rapidly and the decision was made to put him to sleep. My vet kindly offered to necro him and we discovered his right lung was full of pulmonary abscesses, he was starting to go into renal failure and his heart was also starting to be affected. So even though the decision was the right one, I had lost 2 of my beloved Niagara Nakies in 1 week and had to worry about the remaining 2 who had the same issues/same sounds in their lungs.

I wonder if my non-licky Waldo knew he was not coming home that morning? He gave me my first kisses ever, and I kissed him goodbye, and then he went and licked his brother all over. Breathe deep my love.