My Cat's Oldest Guinea Pig Is Sick

lalagimp

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Mu-Xi Mu would not eat her cucumber today. I weighed her and she's 100 grams down from her usual weight. I am out of hand feeding formula and end up with my only option being crushed pellets soaked in warm water, and it's just not cooperating with the syringe. I've gotten a little into her mouth and I know this because she'll start chewing. I can try to leave after boyfriend gets back from the university for the day and I'm done with the kids, and go get some baby food. The idea is that if they don't have anything to eat they will go into GI stasis and chances of treating it, at least in an elderly pig is very low. She'll be turning 6 in August. I haven't had any issues since my last guinea pig died over 2 years ago at age 8. She was older than all my cats.

So I'm up buttcrack dawn early tomorrow because the local vet cannot see her until Monday, so I'm driving my Mu Mu to Virginia. What is normally a 50 minute drive may turn into an hour and a half due to traffic. The local vet would have been a half hour away, but what can you do? And since it's a specialist it's $80 for the appointment. My friend thinks I'm being unreasonable because it's guinea pig and I just think to myself guinea pig or not, that he wouldn't have rallied behind spending ten grand on the cat since we've moved here either.

I think Mu is in this pic. She's the little black potato.
 

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Kieka

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My parents put our rabbits on an IV drip with a week long hospital stay one time. Those same rabbits ended up getting burrowing flies shortly after and one had permanent damage from their illness. The female rabbit lived another 3 years (we had to change her whole cage to accommodate her disability) and the male lived 5 more years. The drive and specialist cost is worth it if you ask me. Just because they are small rodent family pets doesn't make them any less a part of your family.
 
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lalagimp

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I think my last guinea pig illness was $1100. We were just buying her extra time. Ultrasound, teeth filing, pain management, drained a large cyst on kidney, 4 times a day hand feedings.
Mr Emerson ended up with about $2000 over this lifetime until he died (with my assistance) from cancer.
I just want it to be easy like hey she's got a molar spur cutting into her tongue. It's not ovaries. I had those removed when she was 4 because they'd killed so many of my other girls. Her cagemate was spayed at 5 because of a large cyst and lived 3 more years so I just had the vet pop hers out before we had any issues. He did it over her flanks instead of through her abdomen. She was up and around being normal by the end of the day.
 
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lalagimp

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one of the kids says run to the store right quick we have our phones on us so I got gerber baby fruit blends
I couldn't find any baby spinach.
I got her to take about 10 mL of banana, apple, strawberry blend. Yay she's eating but she's not liking being harassed when I put her back in the pig pen. The other girls keep swarming her to sniff her fruity muzzle.
 
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lalagimp

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Her guts still sound like everything is moving and her teeth could use a light filing, she has a mass in her abdomen, and they want to do a small blood panel as well as some medications and vitamin c supplement and Critical Care formula.
 

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Hoping the mass doesn't turn out to be serious.

It really is sad how many small rodent type pets die young from genetic related conditions. Our last rabbit died from a reproductive type cancer. We are not 100% sure on her age because we found her in a public park. We put up flyers because she was super social and a definite pet. We got a call telling us we could keep her because the persons kids got tired of her and so they had let her go in the park to be a wild bunny. No other details were provided but she was already an adult and we had her for 7 years.

Anyways, hoping all goes well for your little one and the blood work comes back clean.
 
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lalagimp

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The blood is a small panel to check liver and kidneys to see if long term pain management is a possibility.
I gave her all her meds, vitamin c, and her handfeeding formula when I got home. Set her up in the hospital cage until we see normal poops with a cozy sack to chill in. I just walked in to check on her and he was out of her sack, chewing on some hay so I know her mouth is feeling better since we had her molars and incisors trimmed. She wasn't able to eat the lettuce them gave her in the carrier for the trip home just yet.
 

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Yay for eating!

I don't think we used the Critical Care. We used something that reminded me of applesauce and smelled like it too.
 
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lalagimp

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Yay for eating!

I don't think we used the Critical Care. We used something that reminded me of applesauce and smelled like it too.
It's PAPAYA! They gave me a gold bag and I said "what's this?" " Papaya." "Oh cool cause I'm old school and always had the green bag which was apple banana or plain anise".
It's got pineapple too!
I feel so old now. I've been doing this almost 11 years and tech hands me a gold bag and I don't know what's going on.
 
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lalagimp

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We just did about 9mL of Critical Care and she started getting restless. I could have made her finish it but I'm going on her terms. I put her back in the hospital cage and checked on her after a few minutes and she's back eating hay again out of her hay rack.
I discussed everything today with boyfriend's daughter and she says so it's good news but not good news?
Yes. We're getting her appetite back and she's still a spunky little girl but this mass in her abdomen is going to create issues for us later on and she needs to start pain management for it now.
If she makes it to August, excellent. She would definitely have hit her 6 years on earth by then. Her old mate, Chai, made it to her 8th and the next month we were at the vet treating her with hospice care.
I'm going to weigh Mu tomorrow before we start the first feeding of the day so I can get an honest read to see how far up she is from the 823 grams I had her read yesterday afternoon.
I wanted her to be ageless. Chai died after turning 8 and she had the longest longevity of my entire herd so I paid $800 and turned her into a dinosaur. We have her articulated skeleton in an acrylic case on a nice base in our living room. Every other pig I've had seems to die 4-4 1/2 years old and some earlier for freak reasons. Mu already has the second place ribbon.
Today is turning out ok. I ended up putting less than $500 on my CareCredit and we're going somewhere with treatment.
 

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Aww, I hope she recovers and perks up for you!

People who has never has had pets just simply do not understand that it's more than "just a guinea pig".. no matter how small the animals are, they are all equally precious!

I've had a guinea pig when I was a kid. One point she was all curled to the side and my mom thought she had a stroke. We took her to the vet and wound up being an ear infection. I remember my mom was not happy about the $300 bill for a guinea pig that was $2 (got her from a store that was closing). She also developed bald spots from allergies to the shavings. Then I developed an allergy to guinea pigs (I'd break out in hives along my jaw and neck). but I still kept her regardless when people told me to get rid of her because I was allergic. She lived to 7 years old.

We even took her to a professional pet sitter when we went on vacations.. could've left her with friends, but nope, we spent more money for a professional, lol.
 
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lalagimp

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I don't think she's going to pull through. Usually by now after a teeth filing they have bounced back and started eating on their own. She's interested when I put treats in and she'll pick them up and put them down but not actually eating any of them. I thought I saw her picking at hay and pellets a few days ago but she's not now. She used to take a feeding from the syringe in about 12 minutes and now she's taking it in 20-30 minutes and keeps telling me she's finished can she please go back to her room now before she's even halfway through a meal. Her poops are still a little under half the normal size and I don't think she's getting supplemented by eating any of her poop anymore so she's dropping weight all over the place. She still takes her medicines: a syringe full of liquid vitamin C, her G.I. motility meds, and her anti-inflammatory Metacam.
It's just not good. I don't see her up and around the cage much the last 2 days but it's funny that I put her back in the pen yesterday to clean her cage and she runs over and buries herself in this huge pile of hay I put out for the other four girls. She's still kinda trying to be a guinea pig. It's just not going that great.
 
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lalagimp

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She had a very long weekend and seemed to be doing ok these last two days or so but now she's very tired and not interested. I gave her meds, fed her a little, gave the rest of her food away to the other four girls who think it's delicious, and put her back in with her other guinea pigs. She's back in bed now. I can try to feed her again in a little while after the meds soak in. She was eating pellets with the other girls yesterday afternoon but not today, at least not right now. The vet called me earlier this week and said her blood work came back ok for long term pain management.
 

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Aww, I'm so sorry to hear about Mu-Xi Mu passing over the bridge. Guinea pigs really don't live long enough - my daughter has kept them for years and just recently lost her grand old man at age 9. The are such dear little creatures. Losing them is so very hard: my heart goes out to you. :rbheart:
 
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