Hiccups
Last week, Duchess went to do her daily chore of sweeping up all the poop in the guinea pig cage (this needs to be done twice a day, because guinea pigs are prodigious poopers) and was very alarmed to find it smeared copiously with blood. Turned out Snufkin had injured his back - the fur on his back was matted with blood. Cook spent most of Tuesday driving Snufkin to the vet (all the way across town), watching the vet pull away the matted fur and then be sprayed with arterial blood, leaving Snufkin and $300 there for surgery, driving home again, and then driving back later to retrieve Snufkin after surgery. The vet declared Snufkin's problem to be "weird - really weird" ; the bleeding was because he had somehow ruptured a growth that he had had on his back (which we were ignoring because it was small, not changing, and didn't seem to hurt or bother him in any way) which was somehow involved with blood vessels, AND was somehow associated with an old injury (childhood trauma probably incurred in the garage where he spent his youth with a LOT of other pigs) that had left a huge scar down his whole spine. Snufkin seems fine, indifferent to his comical shaved patch and stitches, though he really hates the probiotic and antibiotic he has to ingest twice a day. His whole "fuck you, don't touch me, just give me food" attitude somehow seems more nuanced now that we know his previous life literally left him scarred. Like he's a tough, damaged loner who's secretly tender-hearted and vulnerable under all the tattoos and intimidating glares. (Also, because the money we spent on repairing a rodent who literally spends all his time eating, pooping, and running away from us in terror is now spent, and I have to emotionally justify it by making a connection with the rodent.)
Also, this week we have sounded the alarm on Duchess's health. She's generally fine, but she's missed quite a bit of school and activities lately because she intermittently feels tired and dizzy and vaguely sick. I have been annoyed by this; she's a responsible person (except at home) and doesn't really like missing school, but she's also kind of whiny and inclined to laziness (she gets this from me!), and it I have been feeling like she should Just Toughen Up And Stop Malingering. However, it's starting to feel like an actual thing, so we finally called the Kaiser advice line, which suggested that it could be anemia, a potential diagnosis strongly supported by our subsequent googling. She is not enthusiastic about eating liver, so we'll have to find another way to iron her up. She'll need her strength for all the rowing.
On Friday, I had to go (along with all my coworkers) to a 5-hour training on how to interrupt microaggressions, which put me even further behind on all my work tasks that keep piling up. So I would say it's been a First World Problems kind of week.
Also, this week we have sounded the alarm on Duchess's health. She's generally fine, but she's missed quite a bit of school and activities lately because she intermittently feels tired and dizzy and vaguely sick. I have been annoyed by this; she's a responsible person (except at home) and doesn't really like missing school, but she's also kind of whiny and inclined to laziness (she gets this from me!), and it I have been feeling like she should Just Toughen Up And Stop Malingering. However, it's starting to feel like an actual thing, so we finally called the Kaiser advice line, which suggested that it could be anemia, a potential diagnosis strongly supported by our subsequent googling. She is not enthusiastic about eating liver, so we'll have to find another way to iron her up. She'll need her strength for all the rowing.
On Friday, I had to go (along with all my coworkers) to a 5-hour training on how to interrupt microaggressions, which put me even further behind on all my work tasks that keep piling up. So I would say it's been a First World Problems kind of week.
Comments