Phoebe - UPDATE with pics

[Debbie]

I try not to whine about every surgery, because we certainly have our share....but this one will have me worried sick all day. :sad3:

Hubby and I adore all 37 of our animals. But no one more than our dear Phoebe. She is our numero uno.

Pheebs is over 2 now, and has had some respiratory issues on and off. She's our lovable little head tilty girl (we adopted her from a local shelter who was going to put Phoebe to sleep, thinking she had a brain tumor. Thank god we got to her and her sister Ginger, in time. It was of course, just an ear infection, but her head tilt ended up being permanent).

Phoebe has a peri-urethral mass. One of our vets lance it a bit, but was unable to get much out of it. It appeared there was some suspicious tissue in there as well...so we don't know yet if it's just a thick abscess wall, or a tumor. Whatever it is, it's right up against her tiny little urethra, and I'm worried sick it has broken through.

Our vet/surgeon has done this surgery for us before on 3 others (why are these guys prone to tumors and abscess in that area! :redhot: )....but I'm especially worried for Pheebs, due to her age, and the fact that Hubby and I will be devastated if anything happens.

Would you all mind sending Phoebe your good thoughts today? :sad3:

I hope to hear from the vet within the next 3 hours, how the surgery went.

Thanks so much!

 

[lindsayfawn]

I hope everything goes well. Good thoughts coming your way from us and our 16 girls!

 

[mamarat]

Sending good thoughts to your sweetie. :hugs:

 

[raindrop]

Good healing vibes coming yours and Phoebe way. My prayers are with you and please keep us posted.

Ann

 

[bentzrl]

I totally sympathisize with your situation. I'll certainly beam good thoughts vibe with my BGTV helmet! :love6:

Keep us posted on her condition!

 

[Dahlas]

I am sending her good thoughts Debbie....let us know how she does.

 

[jorats]

These types of surgery are very tricky, I'd be worried sick as well. Lots of hugs for you and healing vibes for your sweetie.

 

[Jherek]

Lots of :heart: to you both :cuddle:

 

[NezumiNeko]

3 barrels full of hugs, love, good luck, and monkeys. Best of wishes to Phoebe!

 

[lilspaz68]

Best of luck little girly!!!

 

[Debbie]

Thank you everyone. Phoebe made it through surgery, but I'm still very upset about the outcome. I know in a few days I'll be feeling better, as i hope she will too. But right now, I'm probably a bit too emotional and this post will show it.

It was a tumor. The surgery took over an hour, so they had to do external sutures as not to take any longer. She also has a catheter, that will remain in for 5-7 days. And of course, she has the dreaded collar. :sad3: :sad3: We are both miserable about all this. I couldn't get her to eat anything other than some A/D and Ensure mix. Her collar was too tight and it made her eyes bulge and face swell. I loosened it last night, but will do so again this morning.

Sadly, we've had way too much experince over the years with rats in collars. So I'll have to work at her's to get her a little more comfy. I absolutely HATE them having to wear the collars. But as most of you know, they WILL go for stitches.

On one hand I'm so happy she made it, but on the other, I wonder if it's putting her through too much. I adore my beloved Phoebe, but I'm sure she's probably wishing I let her go right now. AGain, I'm just super emotional right now. Hopefully, once we get the collar adjusted, trimmed down a little, get her to eat, we'll both be feeling better. :sad3: :sad3:

 

[Debbie]

I wanted to share a few pics of our (usually) beautiful Phoebe.

When she and her sister Ginger first arrived:

A few months later (they were almost a year old here):

Enjoying a cookie:

My favortie picture of Pheebs:

And sadly, this is how she looks right now. All puffy faced from her horrid collar. We took the collar off to clean up her face, massage around her cheeks, and loosen the collar one more time. I think it made her feel better, because she was bruxing in the pic. But still.....My poor baby!

 

[mamarat]

Aww your poor sweetie. :heart: Sending lots of healing vibes. :hugs: to you and your hubby.

 

[LA]

Aw poor sweetie.

 

[jorats]

Oh man... that poor sweetie. My vet never puts a collar on our rats but then she doesn't use external sutures, only glue so our girls never go after their stitches. Do you have metacam or some other pain reliever for Pheebs?
She's such a beautiful girl...

 

[Debbie]

Our vet usually always does the internal stitches too. But since it took him an hour to get all the tumor (it really was against her urethra), and Phoebe has some respiratory issues too, he didn't take the extra time needed for the internals. And since she has that dang catheter, she would have still ended up in a collar. :sad3: :sad3:

I just had her out with me for the last hour, so she had a collar break. We just laid on the bed, and she cuddled around my neck. She's uncomfy for sure though. But I was able to get some of the swelling down with some face massage. She's only the second rat who's been in a collar where this has happened. The collar is pretty loose right now (well, not loose enough to get off) so I'm hoping the swelling will continue to go down.

Yeah, we have her on Metacam and Buprenex injections. So she's covered on the pain and inflamation. She's also on Baytril (for her respiratory) and Cefa...so we have the infection angle covered too. I am having a really hard time getting her to eat anything, even when I put her meds in A/D (which they usually just LOVE) with Ensure. I think she's just ticked off about her whole situation. If I have to syringe her meds, I will..but i"m really hoping she'll eat her mush soon and then she'll get her meds that way. :sad3:

 

[jorats]

After surgery, I give mine soy milk, that usually gets them eating.
I hope she starts eating soon, try to keep her warm too.
Sending her lots of healing vibes.

 

[Debbie]

Thanks Jo. Although we don't have any soymilk on hand, we do have the A/D and Ensure, which generally get's my guys eating too. Phoebe will take some of that, though not a lot :sad3: I've had her next to a warm water bottle since we brought her home yesterday too.

I do hope she'll start to perk up soon. But she did go through a lot yesterday.

 

[jorats]

You could try to put some ensure in a syringe and put it by her lips and gently squeezing some but stop before she gets too annoyed. The least amount of stress at this time is what you want.

 

[Debbie]

I was able to get her to eat a bit more of the a/d mush last night, and she ate a tiny bit of oatmeal this morning. She just refuses to eat anything, unless you put the bowl to her face. Most of my others will start leaning to eat the soft stuff, but I do wonder if she still feels pretty sore from her surgery.

I told my hubby I would start syringing her by today if she didn't start eating more.

I'm going to cook her up some pasta (they usually eat that pretty easily when in a collar) and also get some avacado too.

I have a call into my vet this morning, hoping she'll get back to me. Phoebe is starting to leak some blackish goo from the bottom of her incision and out the catheter. They told me she might bleed a little from the catheter, but this is different. I'm just so upset about her, that I have myself all worked up. I'm afraid the catheter isn't working right, and she could be leaking urine into her body (the reason for the catheter to prevent in the first place).

I know this was a pretty tricky surgery and the mass was difficult to remove. Our vet is an amazing surgeon...but I sure hope this isn't the time when it fails. :sad3:

Sorry to whine....guess I'm not able to think too clearly and am very upset.