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enismirdalJust realised I updated Facebook but not here...
Lupanine was a real champion. After the whole pyometra thing over July and August, she bounced back amazingly. For a while, it was like she was a hamster 6 months younger, zooming around and doing all sorts of projects in her cage. I was grateful for every single day, because each one was a gift I didn't expect to have. I'd never seen a hamster actually recover from pyo and have a good quality of life before.
But time went on and age started to creep up. Hamsters don't live a long time, and ones born from random breeding with a large congenital hernia even less so. She was still perky and friendly when she was awake, but she slept more. She got more picky about her food. She lost some weight. We started to supplement the food with hamster-safe baby foods as she'd devour them and hey, it kept her weight up.
On Sunday, we got back in from a day out and she was, as is normal for late afternoon, asleep. But we noticed the baby food hadn't been eaten as much as we'd have expected since we put it in there. Later that evening, we noticed she'd moved so she was lying with her head sticking out of her bed. This wasn't normal for her - she liked to be walled in so people couldn't seen her (to the point where if she noticed she was being watched, she'd rearrange the bedding to shut us out!). And she didn't look well.
Worried, I opened up the cage, peeled back the bedding, and it was clear she really wasn't well. When she tried to move, she started shaking violently. I guessed maybe she'd had a stroke or something. I offered her Harrison's recovery formula in a syringe and she swallowed some of it. But then she seemed to run out of steam, stretched out, started gasping a bit. We lost her fast after that. I like to think she held on till I got home because she wanted to say goodbye. We said goodbye. It was hard.
It's been hard. Especially for CRI, who isn't used to hamsters and their little, intense lives, but for both of us, because Lupanine-Bob was both of ours really.
It's been harder because the cage has sat there all week, huge and empty, staring at us, without a little orange loon bouncing around it.
It's been harder because we are about to move house, and then later we have a holiday, so it's not sensible for us to have another hamster till nearly Christmas. So I have to be hamsterless for over a month.
But I suppose it's better to go all of a sudden like that than spend weeks feeling rotten.
I have a big packet of love that I will give a hamster when the time is right, but for now it is sitting inside me ready to burst.
So at some point, I will be getting a Deltamethrin-Bob, or a Tithonia-Bob, or a Quercetin-Bob, or a Rooibos-Bob. I will find a hamster nobody else wants, and love it very much.
For now, I will remember my brave little orange hamster, with very much love.
Lupanine was a real champion. After the whole pyometra thing over July and August, she bounced back amazingly. For a while, it was like she was a hamster 6 months younger, zooming around and doing all sorts of projects in her cage. I was grateful for every single day, because each one was a gift I didn't expect to have. I'd never seen a hamster actually recover from pyo and have a good quality of life before.
But time went on and age started to creep up. Hamsters don't live a long time, and ones born from random breeding with a large congenital hernia even less so. She was still perky and friendly when she was awake, but she slept more. She got more picky about her food. She lost some weight. We started to supplement the food with hamster-safe baby foods as she'd devour them and hey, it kept her weight up.
On Sunday, we got back in from a day out and she was, as is normal for late afternoon, asleep. But we noticed the baby food hadn't been eaten as much as we'd have expected since we put it in there. Later that evening, we noticed she'd moved so she was lying with her head sticking out of her bed. This wasn't normal for her - she liked to be walled in so people couldn't seen her (to the point where if she noticed she was being watched, she'd rearrange the bedding to shut us out!). And she didn't look well.
Worried, I opened up the cage, peeled back the bedding, and it was clear she really wasn't well. When she tried to move, she started shaking violently. I guessed maybe she'd had a stroke or something. I offered her Harrison's recovery formula in a syringe and she swallowed some of it. But then she seemed to run out of steam, stretched out, started gasping a bit. We lost her fast after that. I like to think she held on till I got home because she wanted to say goodbye. We said goodbye. It was hard.
It's been hard. Especially for CRI, who isn't used to hamsters and their little, intense lives, but for both of us, because Lupanine-Bob was both of ours really.
It's been harder because the cage has sat there all week, huge and empty, staring at us, without a little orange loon bouncing around it.
It's been harder because we are about to move house, and then later we have a holiday, so it's not sensible for us to have another hamster till nearly Christmas. So I have to be hamsterless for over a month.
But I suppose it's better to go all of a sudden like that than spend weeks feeling rotten.
I have a big packet of love that I will give a hamster when the time is right, but for now it is sitting inside me ready to burst.
So at some point, I will be getting a Deltamethrin-Bob, or a Tithonia-Bob, or a Quercetin-Bob, or a Rooibos-Bob. I will find a hamster nobody else wants, and love it very much.
For now, I will remember my brave little orange hamster, with very much love.
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Date: 4 Nov 2017 00:08 (UTC)Hugs?
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Date: 5 Nov 2017 19:50 (UTC)no subject
Date: 5 Nov 2017 21:37 (UTC)