Saturday, March 08, 2008

Doing well. And you?

Well, first things first.
Let's talk about Hastings, since she's been more than ever my obsession over the last few weeks.

My last update was last Saturday, and wasn't that encouraging. The vet was still worried about her.
Since then, we've been giving her daily new meals of the immune-system-boosting food, and dabbing her wound like we're supposed to. We've also been medicating her, much to her disgust. I could swear that she grows extra limbs when it comes to the 'evil parents forcing her to take 0.16ml of medicine by syringe' time of day.

Now... Monday morning we get up, we dab her wound (no scabbing) and we give her her medicine.
12 hours later, we get home, and there is no wound. Where the wound was is still red, but it is closed and flat.
We did spend quite a while holding her and saying "But... how did you do it?"
We thought it would be better to take her back to the vet early (her check-up was due to be Friday), and we got an appointment for Matt to take her on Wednesday afternoon.
Well, the vet was extremely surprised to see how well she'd recovered. He said that she was far, far better than he thought she would be at this point.
He checked her over, and said that she still had a little bit of an ear infection, and that we should keep up the diet for now, and continue to give her medicine for the next two weeks.
Looking at her now (which is more difficult because she's back to her normal speed and activeness), all that's visible of her wound is the area of stitches, which are specially done in rats to be internal, and then grow out as it heals.

She's still baldy from the operation, and still looks like the Terminator, but she's doing bloody well.
I'm very pleased.

So, other news!
In exciting new pet news, we're buying two little rescue rats next week. We've noticed that Hastings seems to be a bit lonely since Hobble died back in December, and we found what may be quite the most charming pet shop in the world.
It's run by a couple who used to run an animal shelter, and they treat all the animals like they're theirs. When we went in today, we were able to handle the rats, and there were two rabbits flumping about on the floor for exercise.

In fact, when we first stumbled into their shop a month ago, we were talking to the woman, and I said something like:
"It's weird. The two rats in the cage over there are really freaked out by people, but these ones are really friendly."
Her: "Well, yes. We're looking after those ones as a favour to someone, but these ones are mine."
Me: "Yours?"
Her: "Well... mine until we find good homes for them."

That made me adore their attitude to the animals they're selling.
They take in a lot of rescue rats, and the two we are getting are part of a group they got in about six weeks ago. They're nearly four months old, and they are darling.
We've reserved the two we especially like, and we're picking them, and a cage for them, up next Saturday.

One of them is dark brown, with a white tummy and white legs. We're going to call her Tiglath-Pileser VI. She's named after several kings of Assyria. Now, there were three or four Tiglath-Pilesers (the third is also called the fourth), plus a cat belonging to Bunch and Julian Harmon in the Agatha Christie books. So she'd have to be the sixth.
Incidentally, I'm looking for the nearest-to-proper pronunciation of 'Pileser'. I don't know if any particular syllable should be emphasised, and I can't find anything that suggests so.

The other girl is a ginger hooded rat who reminds me strongly of Hobble, but without the many genetic and medical problems. We intend to call her Spock.

In non-pet news, I'm back working at Pseudonym School, which is fun.

And Matt and I had Mr Brain's Pork Faggots for dinner. We'd been admiring their rather wonderful name for ages, and we thought it was time that we tried them.
They were ok. Rather disintegraty, but tasty.

And now I'm weary, so weary, from this almost entirely rat-centric post.
I'll talk again soon.
*blows kisses*

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9 Comments:

At 2:13 am, Blogger NEO said...

Good for Hastings for getting better and some company, hope all is well and goes well.

 
At 3:39 am, Blogger Smerk said...

Yay for Hastings and yay for new rats!

 
At 11:24 am, Blogger Nettie said...

I'm glad Hastings is better sweetie.

 
At 11:26 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear that her ratty majesty is doing so well. And so squirmy.

And yay for more rats! Are they going to be big enough that they can be around Hastings safely?

And Tiglath-Pileser is the Anglicised transliteration of the Hebrew version of the name, so as far as I can work out it would be something like "tie-GLAWTH pee-leh-SEHR" (Hebrew usually stresses the final syllable). Hebrew's not one of my strong points, though, so maybe you know some Jews you could ask.

 
At 11:46 am, Blogger LaMa said...

Yay for Hastings! :-)

 
At 8:19 pm, Blogger Shawna said...

Glad Hastings is doing better, and I'm sure she'll enjoy the company!

 
At 11:30 pm, Blogger Mouse said...

I'm looking forward to meeting the new rats, and after seeing Hastings today she certainly seems back to her old self!

 
At 6:47 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just adding my Yay!

 
At 5:02 am, Blogger Tah said...

I double exactly what Smerk said. :-)

 

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