This morning I woke up with such a sore back that I ended up calling in sick to work which I haven’t done since January. I couldn’t deal with sitting in an office chair all day the way I was feeling. I worked out for 40 minutes on Monday and also did some dishes (which I don’t usually do) so I’m guessing that might have contributed to the pain somehow. It seems like lately I can’t do anything without my back hurting but it has never been as bad as this. Once I feel better I am going to start doing yoga to strengthen my back. I really don’t want to go to the doctor yet since the insurance isn’t the greatest so I hope this passes.
After taking some ibuprofen I went back to bed for a few hours. When I checked on the rats I noticed Steve was looking pretty bad. He’s been losing weight for awhile and I haven’t seen him eat anything for a day or two. All he does is sleep and his breathing has been shallow so I had already decided a couple of days ago that we’d be taking him in to be euthanized later this week, but I decided it would be best to do that today since I was worried he was miserable. I made an appointment and we took him to the vet around noon. Even though he was a mean little thing I still felt awful and got teary-eyed. After they brought his lifeless body back into the room I noticed he had some caked up poop on his bottom. There was a tumor near his anus and now I think maybe it had made him difficult to go to the bathroom so I’m really glad we didn’t wait any longer since he might have been in pain. I hope Doug doesn’t take it too hard.
Incidentally, the vet tried to bill me $60 even though we don’t keep the ashes. I told them they only charged $30 last time when I had Marshmallow put to sleep and they agreed to charge the same this time. I still don’t understand why it would cost $60 for that but whatever. I will have to find out how much it costs at the newer vet before I have to do this again. We took Steve to our old vet since it’s closer. Plus I was a little worried how the new vet might judge me for his condition. He used to be huge but when I picked him up the other day he barely weighed anything. I was torn over when to intervene because I didn’t want him to suffer but I also didn’t want to have him put to sleep too soon either. It’s always a very tough call to make.