Gizmo isn’t doing well. Monday night I noticed he was breathing heavily so Tuesday morning Joe called our vet to make an appointment. Unfortunately the exotic vet isn’t on staff every day at our normal clinic so the earliest they could see him was Wednesday afternoon. Typically when rats start breathing heavily they need medicine quickly or they’ll die, so waiting was not an option. Joe called an exotic vet that our friends use for their ferrets which they highly recommend but they were rather shitty towards Joe. Since we already have a normal vet they wouldn’t see us until Thursday. I quickly Googled exotic vet and found one not terribly far away. Joe called them and was able to make an appointment that same afternoon. I told my boss something came up at home and ended up leaving an hour early so we could make it there on time for the appointment.
As soon as we walked in we were greeted by the receptionist and a vet tech. They took Gizmo into another room and put him on oxygen to help his breathing. Another vet tech took his full health history and relayed it back to the vet who was examining Gizmo in the other room while he was on oxygen. She then came in to explain what she thought might be going on and presented us with our options which also included a quote if we wanted them to do an x-ray to get to the bottom of his issues. It was $110 which wasn’t quite as expensive as I had expected so we opted for them to do it. He has fluid in his lungs due to heart issues and a huge mass in his belly that is causing all his internal organs to shift to one side. Since he’s over two years of age, coupled with the heart issue, surgery is not an option. For now he’s on three different medications for his breathing/heart with the option to add an herbal supplement that has been known to slow the growth of tumors. We didn’t put him on that medication yet since I wanted to get his breathing under control first. Plus I saw no point in the other medication if he’s going to possibly die anyway.
His breathing is still labored, although not as bad as before, so I’m not sure what we’re going to do. He definitely has more energy and is acting more like himself, and he’s eating, although he won’t eat his regular rat food. He’ll eat everything else, though, so I’ve been giving him oats, carrots, and a few treats here and there. I have a bad feeling that the $200 (visit, x-ray, and medications) merely bought him a few more weeks, if that, and we’re going to have to euthanize him. He doesn’t seem too uncomfortable right now, but that mass is going to continue to grow, plus he can’t be getting all the nutrients he needs when he refuses to eat the rat food. Ugh, I hate this! He has a follow-up appointment on Friday and I’m trying to mentally prepare for the worst possible outcome.