Bad veterinary surgery (grim descriptions)

[RivaOni]

I'm not sure I've mentioned anything about this before, but Chixie has started keeping fancy rats, she currently has 6, all boys I'm not allowing her to breed as she wouldn't be able to give them up...

Anyhow, one recently got rather aggressive towards the others, we'd been through all the dominance fighting already, although it was never 100% which of them was dominant. The guy who was aggressive seemed to be boss of the cage, and was the largest of them, but the second largest seemed to have as much power and produced alot of "buck grease" which according to people Chixie has spoken to, means he's the alpha.

Anyhow, the aggressiveness of Jester was getting a bit much, it was stressing Iceman out, and when he gets stressed he has bad respiratory problems and has to be dosed up on drugs for that, and he also started taking rather large bites out of Viper (they're all named after Top Gun characters by the way, Maverick (dude looks like a lady! as he's very feminine looking), Goose (the buck greasey one), Jester (Mr Aggressive), Iceman (stressy boy), Viper and Merlin (brothers, both attention whores, Merlin moreso though) ). so we removed him from the cage and put him in a smaller one on his own whilst booking an appointment at the vets for him to be neutered.

Anyhow, Wednesday was the day he was neutered. He went off to the vets and they wanted to keep him there for the day to monitor him once the deed was done, so at 4:30 Chixie went over to the vets to collect him and was told that he didn't need any after treatment and just to let him rest for a couple of hours. She followed this and got him out of his carrier at about 10 to check on him, all was fine and he'd scabbed over a bit (rats are supposedly very fast healers). Although things took a turn for the worse. You see they hadn't stitched him, or glued him, so his sack was completely open. Then with no warning,he begun to bleed a little and some brown tubing started to hang out, she phoned a vets she knew operated an emergency advice service and was told it was probably a bit of tubing from his testicles, to take him back to the vets the following day and have him sorted out.

So she did that, but it turns out it wasn't any remains of tubing from his testicles, it was his intestine! The person who did the operation had cut through the wall that held his gut in, they've repaired it, free of charge (although we feel the initial £65 fee for the original surgery should be refunded as an apology too as he fucked up badly) and stitched his sack up this time and gave Charly a warning about a possible infection that could kill him.

So now we have to watch him over the next two weeks to see if he stops drinking, eating or pooing. If he does any of these, its a possible sign his gut has an infection which cannot be cured and will kill him, so Chixie is incredibly upset as not only has she lost any chance of winning any more events with him (he's her only pure bred rat, but she can't show him now he's lost his testicles) but she could also face losing him altogether because of the vets cock-up.

Now I understand accidents happen, but this is really bad of the surgery and they should of checked for anything like this before finishing the surgery, and I for one am appauled at them. Needless to say, she's making an official complaint, and having the vet and the surgery removed from any breeders reccomended lists.

[Shandriz]

Eugh, that's awful! I've seen enough veterinary surgeries to know how easy it can be to do that particular one-- though the ones I've watched have been dogs and cats, but still, it's not like it's a particularly complicated surgery to begin with-- just a little tougher when they're that tiny. To mess up that badly is really poor form. I'm sorry you guys are having to go through this, but hopefully the little guy will pull through all right.

[FawkesFyre]

I would have absolutly freaked if I had been in her shoes. There's no excuse for a vet to eff up like that, and even moreso to tell her to wait until the next day to bring him in...I know it was prolly due to the time of day, but still.

I love my kitties like children and can understand how she must have felt. I freaked when I got Moochie fixed and all they did was glue him back together. I don't know anything about rats but, an open wound is still an open wound, which is just stange to me that they didn't even cover it up.

I agree that they should have refunded your money. I hope he's ok and makes it through all this.

[RivaOni]

The thing with her not being able to take him in that night was actually worse than that.

Basically, the "surgery" we took him to don't operate in this town, they take the animals to a bigger surgery in another town, and on Thursday's they don't even open the drop-in centre where we live so we had to scrape together what money we had left for her to travel to that town to drop him off for them to seal him back up.

She did phone a proper emergency vet that would do surgery that night on him, but they were quoting £200 (thats $400), which is money we really do not have!

But, he does seem to be doing alright now, he's been eating fine, drinking fine and going toilet with no problems it seems, but we'll probably have to monitor him for about a fortnight to make sure he doesn't get an infection...

Also, we're not gonna risk him going in with the other boys, shes got two girls lined up for him to live with in another cage so there'll be no chance of a repeat fight for domination, its just sad that Chixie and Jester have had to go through all of this, that she can no longer show him, and that he's had to be seperated from his original group.

[FawkesFyre]

That's ridiculous! I'm so sorry you've had to go through so much crap in all this. But it is good to hear that he's doing well...and getting rewarded with some lady-friends when he's all better lol

[Sciler]

Tahts horrible, I hope the kitty turns out ok.

My 2 cats I had for 19 years were named Jester and Viper
They died 2 years ago though, near my birthday, but they were old, they had a good life thankfully.

[RivaOni]

This is Jester (the black and white one) and Goose:



Maverick (Maverick and Goose are brothers)



Merlin and Viper:



Lastly Iceman:



Jesters due to go back on on the fourth of Feb to have his stitches out, so Charlys thinkking of challenging them for a refund.

[FawkesFyre]

You know, I'm not totally gushy over rodents but teh faces are SOOO cute!

There are too many ways to use these pics as a "Photoshop Friday"...

Especially the Iceman one..."What do you mean we're out of Cheezewiz?"---that expresion is just great on him...

[Sciler]

lol change my kitty comment earlier to rat >_< I read fancy rats as fancy cats. I'm a tard but either way, I dont want any animals to have to suffer. I hope he gets better still! They are too cute!

This is Jester

This is Viper (aka attn whore, camera lover)

And this is both, when they were pretty young, like maybe 9 or 10


and yes they were bros! =D

[FawkesFyre]

Viper reminds me of my first kitty, Chloe. She just walked down my grandparent's driveway one morning after she was thrown out of the back of a station wagon. We had her for at least 12 years...I'm not sure how old i was.

Funny, I have more cats now than i've had in my entire life. 3 now, 2 growing up...#2 kitty, Zoe, is around 10ish and lives w/ my mom. Zoe's a Calico so I guess I've had a full variety of kitties now.

Chloe-Tabby
Zoe-Calico
Moochie-Black and White Norwegian forest
Leto-Domestic Black (Al's cat)
Marcie-Tortoiseshell British Shorthair

And I can't forget Simon who's Al's mom's cat...we call him a Simonese since he's a funky mix that looks like a longhaired Siamese. But I think if you had to classify him, he might actually be a Ragdoll

And Moochie's baby brother, Curley (3 stooges) who's a Grey and White shorthair...different daddy. He lives somewhere in Newnan...long story.

Didn't mean for this to be such a long post...if it had been dogs, it would have been a shortr list