Friday the 13th is kind of lucky so far
Aug. 13th, 2004 02:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonLast night around 10:45 I thought I should go wake Pan up so that he would get some running around time before we went to bed, otherwise he'd be trying to get us to get up and play all night. When I went into the bedroom I heard a very odd sort of desparate grunting noise. I located Pan but couldn't find Seti anywhere--called in Mathew to help and he found Seti wedged down between the wall and the headboard. We had built a sort of Trading Spaces headboard, plywood with fabric stapled over stuffing, screwed into the baseboard, and the plywood has been gradually warping away from the wall. The top of the headboard was rather inconceivably high for the ferrets to reach. Or so we thought. I guess Seti went up there to check out some paint chips I'd taped to the wall, then fell between the headboard and the wall and ended up wedged into the bottom of the V-shape created by the warping plywood. Having been on various ferret email lists and forums over the years, I am all too well aware that this kind of thing can actually kill a ferret, particularly if they have become wedged head-first. Thankfully he was wedged horizontally.
But he was glassy-eyed and his nose was grey, and he'd pooped on himself. We wrenched the headboard off the wall and hauled him out of there. He was pretty non-responsive, clearly in shock, though he did eat a little nutrical. I gave that to him because ferrets' blood sugar crashes easily, and the nutrical is basically all sugar. We put him by the waterbowl, where he did drink a little water and then just stuck his head under the fountain without drinking. Off to Angell Memorial we went, in the worst torrential downpours of the night. He sat quietly in my arms the whole way there, partly wrapped in a towel, and it reminded me so much of Cully's last trip to Angell I thought my heart was going to crack in half.
By the time we got to Angell, he had perked up a little bit. There were three other patients ahead of us in the emergency room and only one vet on duty, so we had about an hour's wait. Throughout that hour Seti had some more water and walked around a little bit. When we saw the vet, he wanted to explore the vet's office, which was a good sign and also allowed the vet to watch his gait. His left hind leg seemed stiff, but palpitation revealed nothing wrong, and he didn't flinch at all when the leg was moved around and poked and prodded. The vet gave us the options of leaving him overnight for observation and xrays in the morning, or we could take him home and watch him carefully for the next while. We opted for option 2 because he was perking up so much. I had to put him in the carrier for the trip home since he was so wiggly and awake.
We got home at about 2am, and I stayed up until 3 just making sure he was okay. One of the best sounds in the entire world is the sound of kibble crunching in the middle of the night, I tell you. I stayed home from work this morning to watch him more, and while he wasn't swinging from the rafters or anything, he was active and curious and ate and drank and pooped and did all the regular things a ferret should. Also he gave me kisses, which is generally a sign that he is happy with the world. M is going to stay home in the afternoon to watch him. Hopefully we will continue to be lucky today.
Earlier in the evening, Seti was hanging out in the armchair with me, just being sociable and friendly, and I was marveling at what a great ferret he is, so interactive and self-confident and gentle yet rough and tumble and full of zest for life. I am kicking myself about a dozen things I could have done to prevent this accident from happening, but hindsight is 20/20, as they say. The only thing I think I really can do differently for the future is every now and then look at the apartment as though I am ferret-proofing it for the first time, to try to spot any changes that have happened without our really noticing it, like the headboard warping. I do feel like we were very lucky that it wasn't worse, and I shake a little thinking about it.
As a side note, emergency visits to Angell Memorial are expensive, but the person at the desk, upon noting that we were frequent flyers there and that Seti had been seen by a vet a couple of weeks before, wrote up the visit as a check-up rather than an emergency exam, cutting the price in half. Not that money is the important thing here, but still, that was very nice and it does help.
Someday i will write an entry on the way some people can't control their dogs, but I don't feel like doing that now. Suffice to say that treating your dog as though it is a person means that you will have a very unruly dog, no matter how nice a dog it might be. Also, I hate having to play ferret ambassador when I am sick and scared for the health of my ferret, especially when people ask "how long do they live?" Forever, okay? Just shut up!
But he was glassy-eyed and his nose was grey, and he'd pooped on himself. We wrenched the headboard off the wall and hauled him out of there. He was pretty non-responsive, clearly in shock, though he did eat a little nutrical. I gave that to him because ferrets' blood sugar crashes easily, and the nutrical is basically all sugar. We put him by the waterbowl, where he did drink a little water and then just stuck his head under the fountain without drinking. Off to Angell Memorial we went, in the worst torrential downpours of the night. He sat quietly in my arms the whole way there, partly wrapped in a towel, and it reminded me so much of Cully's last trip to Angell I thought my heart was going to crack in half.
By the time we got to Angell, he had perked up a little bit. There were three other patients ahead of us in the emergency room and only one vet on duty, so we had about an hour's wait. Throughout that hour Seti had some more water and walked around a little bit. When we saw the vet, he wanted to explore the vet's office, which was a good sign and also allowed the vet to watch his gait. His left hind leg seemed stiff, but palpitation revealed nothing wrong, and he didn't flinch at all when the leg was moved around and poked and prodded. The vet gave us the options of leaving him overnight for observation and xrays in the morning, or we could take him home and watch him carefully for the next while. We opted for option 2 because he was perking up so much. I had to put him in the carrier for the trip home since he was so wiggly and awake.
We got home at about 2am, and I stayed up until 3 just making sure he was okay. One of the best sounds in the entire world is the sound of kibble crunching in the middle of the night, I tell you. I stayed home from work this morning to watch him more, and while he wasn't swinging from the rafters or anything, he was active and curious and ate and drank and pooped and did all the regular things a ferret should. Also he gave me kisses, which is generally a sign that he is happy with the world. M is going to stay home in the afternoon to watch him. Hopefully we will continue to be lucky today.
Earlier in the evening, Seti was hanging out in the armchair with me, just being sociable and friendly, and I was marveling at what a great ferret he is, so interactive and self-confident and gentle yet rough and tumble and full of zest for life. I am kicking myself about a dozen things I could have done to prevent this accident from happening, but hindsight is 20/20, as they say. The only thing I think I really can do differently for the future is every now and then look at the apartment as though I am ferret-proofing it for the first time, to try to spot any changes that have happened without our really noticing it, like the headboard warping. I do feel like we were very lucky that it wasn't worse, and I shake a little thinking about it.
As a side note, emergency visits to Angell Memorial are expensive, but the person at the desk, upon noting that we were frequent flyers there and that Seti had been seen by a vet a couple of weeks before, wrote up the visit as a check-up rather than an emergency exam, cutting the price in half. Not that money is the important thing here, but still, that was very nice and it does help.
Someday i will write an entry on the way some people can't control their dogs, but I don't feel like doing that now. Suffice to say that treating your dog as though it is a person means that you will have a very unruly dog, no matter how nice a dog it might be. Also, I hate having to play ferret ambassador when I am sick and scared for the health of my ferret, especially when people ask "how long do they live?" Forever, okay? Just shut up!
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 03:48 pm (UTC)One of the best sounds in the entire world is the sound of kibble crunching in the middle of the night, I tell you.
No kidding.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 06:08 pm (UTC)i'm glad the little man is OK. i had a similar incident years ago with Ingrid - so scary, and so hard not to blame yourself for oversight. however, not all of us can see the world through ferret glasses...
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 10:30 am (UTC)I found that line almost unbearably cute, by the way.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-15 08:16 pm (UTC)I always stop reading LJ at exactly the wrong time. Sorry I missed this -- otherwise I would have asked about it during Babe & Bacon. I'm so seriously glad Seti is OK.
Good tidings
Date: 2004-08-16 06:39 am (UTC)