Mama (Pig) Drama

Ohai Everybody

Yup, it's a piggie post today... all about our attention whore Mama Pig.

Mama Pig recently turned the big 5, meaning she is now officially a "senior pig" (average life span of a guinea pig is 5-7 years). She takes her vitamins daily and is usually very spritely and evil in spite of her age. She has recently taken to eating the cage as a subtle way of saying "ADMIRE MY BEAUTY... or feed me. Either or really".

FEED ME

FEED ME

FEED MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Well, today she wasn't like that, at all. I came home from work to find a limp lil' Mama sitting on my grandma's lap. She had been extremely lethargic and uninterested in food all day. My first thought was "oh crap Mama's dying". Upon closer inspection I found crust on her nose, slightly labored breath, weight loss, and a bit of a puffed coat. This means one thing and one thing alone, an Upper Respiratory Infection (URI). My next thought was "If I don't get her to a vet she'll die".

The face of a sick little piggie :(

For those of you unfamiliar with URIs and piggies... they can kill a pig... very, very easily. If I did nothing about this Mama would probably be dead within the next 48 hours. Definitely be dead with 72.  Time is definitely an important factor when treating URIs. If you think your pig might have one (and it's pretty obvious when they do) GET THEIR LITTLE PIG ASSES TO THE VET ASAP!

Naturally it was later on the day when I found out about Mama, we called our local exotics vet about her hours. It was 5:50 and we found out her shift ends at 6:00 (CRAP) but luckily for us our vet is AMAZING and was willing to wait for Mama. So we rushed her to the vet. The vet totally agreed with my diagnoses of a URI. She had to give Mama some fluids via SubQs (they injected saline into a pocket in her skin to keep her hydrated, it buys time for the antibiotics to work). Mama was a very good girl for most of the visit, except for the whole "THE THERMOMETER GOES WHERE?!?!" thing. The vet said she wasn't running a fever nor was her breathing terrible, so hopefully we caught it in time *knocks on wood*.

Unfortunately Mama has to be on antibiotics again, I don't know if y'all remember the last time Mama was on antibiotics, but she got reaaaaaallllllyyyyyyyyyy sick from them. I mentioned this to the vet. She told me to keep Mama ridiculously hydrated. Let's hope it keeps her healthy.

Tomorrow I'm gonna start Mama on "Critical Care" feedings to make sure she's getting all of the nutrients she needs and then some.

So yeah... Mama requests ninja vibes.

Crippie's Tippie - VETS... TAKE YOUR PIGS TO THEM

ARE YOU BLIND!

Yo!

Funny story for y'all today...

Today was a day of doctor's appointments. I saw my pain doctor today. It went well but that's not the main story today. Angel and Helen went to the vet (they're fine, they just had check-ups and shots). It was an all day event. Right before I went into my doctor's appointment we received a call from the vet's office about the dogs. I answered the phone. The conversation went as follows...

Vet Person - Hi... um... we have some concerns about Angel and Helen
Crippie - Uh oh, what's wrong
Vet Person in a very nervous tone - Um... well... with Helen... we.... um... the doctor believes something is wrong with her eyes... he doesn't think she can see anything
Crippie - Well yeah... she's blind.
Vet Person - Oh... um... has she seen a specialist?
Crippie - Yeah, she has detached retinas. She's completely blind.
Vet Person - Oh... ok

Helen is blind eh?

So it looks like someone forgot to add the whole "HELEN IS FREAKING BLIND" thing to her record. LOL FAIL. Needless to say we've been joking about this event for the remainder of the day. Everyone is saying I should have told the vet person "BUT SHE COULD SEE THIS MORNING!" just to mess with her. We're also pretending to be devastated by this tragic turn of events in Helen's life. Helen is coping with this in the only way she knows how to, by sleeping, eating treats, and cuddling with her humans. She's so brave ;)

It's hard to be Helen

Seriously though, if you look at Helen's eyes it's really obvious that she cannot see. You can see through them when the light is right. 

Needless to say, today was thoroughly entertaining. Something tells me we're gonna be saying "OH MY GOD HELEN IS BLIND" at random times for the next few days

Crippie's Tippie - OH MY GOD HELEN IS BLIND!!!!!! 

Crippie's Actual Tippie - Sometimes it's better to laugh at the stupidity of others rather than getting mad at them

Use the Stairs LIKE A BOSS

Ohai Everyone!

I hope y'all had a tremendous Thursday and a freakin' awesome Friday. My day went pretty damn well. I had the day off from work today so I got to hang out with some family friends who were in town. That alone would have made for a fun day, BUT it gets better. Ya see... I forgot that one of said friends was a physical therapist. Silly Crippie. We asked her about the whole stair situation because that was probably gonna be my biggest challenge coming home. Good thing we asked her how to do it because boooooooooooooyyy was method of getting up the stairs wrong. It turns out that when you cannot put any weight on your leg, the best way to get up the stairs is backwards. Yup, you heard me, backwards!

The new and improved plan of getting me up the stairs is simple... basically I grab on to my double railings (WHICH EVERY HOUSE NEEDS) and jump up each step backwards. Someone needs to stand in front of me to spot me, but yeah, it's relatively easy. Not to mention jumping up the stairs backwards with one leg sounds totally badass! I feel like such a daredevil! Now I have 10 days to make sure my arms are strong enough for this feat of awesomeness.

Today we also took Angel and Helen to the vet for a post-op check if you will. Angel had a pretty good time, she got to go in the car, smell some awesome new dogs, play with some of said dogs, and she didn't try to kill the vet! Helen on the other was not as pleased the outing, once she realized where she was the whole "DO NOT WANT" mentality kicked and she freaked out a bit. She felt better after her 30 second (no exaggeration) check-up. Speaking of Helen tomorrow is her 1 year adoption anniversary!  It's hard to believe that little pipsqueak has been with us for an entire year. How are we gonna celebrate? With her favorite food of course! We gave Angel a hamburger for her birthday, but Helen is not the hugest fan of meats. Helen loves all things cheese. Heaven help you if you try to eat a string cheese near this dog, because she will try to kill you for it. So we are gonna celebrate by letting Helen have some cheesy products. Yes, we know that cheese is really not a great thing for dogs, but she has it in moderation.

And as promised... ANIMAL PICTURES TO MAKE UP FOR A SHORTER POST!

You know what would help me sleep... CHEEEEEESSSSSEEEEEEEEEE 

Angel and Helen sleeping

Sleeping Beauty

And representing the piggies... here's Frida being awake and cute

Crippie's Tippie - BEFRIEND A PHYSICAL THERAPIST!!! 

April End She Will

Howdy Y'all

It's hard to believe that April is over. That means the 30 posts in 30 days challenge has come to an end :(. Even though Crippie didn't follow most of the prompts, and I missed a few days... I consider this a success.

Now for the Mama Pig update. We couldn't take her to the vet today. Alas, our usual vet's office no longer treats guinea pigs. We were able to find a place in Jersey that can take care of a pig, but their particular vet that handles pigs wasn't in today. *Sigh* Yeaaaaaaahhh... so tomorrow Mama Pig will definitely go see a vet. If you are considering getting a Guinea Pig, remember they are technically "exotic pets" and not all vets are prepared to treat them. You'll need to find a good exotics vet who knows what they are talking about.

So what's wrong with Mama Pig? I'm still not gonna jinx anything by telling you, but let me put it this way... without some form of medical intervention she would die. Another word of advice to pig owners, if you pig is sick... help them. Please don't leave them in their cage to die. Crippie can't believe that there are people who do nothing if their pigs get sick, not even trying homeopathic treatments. How can people think that these guys are not worth saving? If I were to hypothetically opt to do nothing with Mama Pig she would stop eating, stop weeing, stop pooping and die a painful death... this process would of course take a few days so I'd be letting her slowly suffer. C'mon people, if you buy a pet accept ALL the responsibilities that go along with it. One of your responsibilities is to keep your animal alive for as long as humanely possible.

Sorry that I'm ending my 30 posts in 30 days with "Debbie Downer" posts, but I do hope that those pictures of the goats helped make up for it. Hopefully in a few days I'll be able to go back to my normal cripple posts :)

Crippie's Tippie - Where are the good exotic vets? Check www.guinealynx.info to find one in your area. If there are none, call around and see if anyone has experience with piggies.

Luck Be A Piggie Tonight

Yo!

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has been posting such sweet comments here, y'all are seriously awesome. I'm also glad to see that people are enjoying my pee cup story. Yeah, Crippie has arthritis and tumors in her fingers, so opening jars and bottles is challenging to say the least. Can any of my wonderful readers recommend a jar/bottle opener that works for someone with a stupidly weak grip? I really haven't been able to find any good ones.

Carrying on, today was kinda scary for Crippie and her family. Last night I was taking care of my piggies when I noticed a fair amount of blood in one of the cages. After some examinations I found out the blood was coming from Emma. Upon further inspection I also found a tumor on her tummy. Internet research told me this was reallyyyy not good. The internet said Emma would need surgery. Guinea Pigs and surgery don't always mesh well. So last night Crippie was stressing out to say the least over Emma's possible prognosis. We took Emma to the vet today after I got home from work. Emma was not pleased about the whole prospect of seeing a vet, she told me so by taking a massive wee on me on the ride to the vet. The vet (who looked and acted a little too much like Dr. Cox from "Scrubs") thought Emma either had a bladder stone, an abscess, or a really bad infection in the uterus. ALL of those things require surgery to fix... SUPER. The doctor wanted an x-ray to properly diagnose her. Emma didn't like the idea of an x-ray, she let us know by taking a wee on my mom. Emma was a good girl though and let the vet take x-rays of her. I was getting purdy damn worried as to what the x-rays would show, much to my surprise the x-rays showed that Emma has no serious health issues... YAY EMMA! The vet then concluded that Emma probably has a infection that caused the tumor and the blood, some antibiotics should hopefully take care of the problem. So we have to give Emma cherry flavored anti-biotics for the next week, works for me.

I'm soooooooooooo freakin' happy that Emma doesn't need surgery. Let's just hope that the anti-biotics work. If y'all could send your ninja healing vibes to Emma I'd greatly appreciate it.

Crippie's Tippie- Normals make the best can and jar openers

Emma's Tippie - HAY STICKS ARE FREAKIN' AWESOME... and please keep a watchful eye on your pets so you know when they get sick


P.S. Yes, Crippie is aware that she made two posts in a row related to pee