Miss Mae and I are back from the vet! We were with the vet for a good hour, goodness. I got the good vet this time and she's very thorough and happy to answer questions. Poor Tallulah was a mess- she does NOT like going to the vet! Her nose was running yellow and her eyes were watering like crazy from the stress. And when I went to the desk to get a pen, I turned around to see that the office cat had run through the cat door and was right in front of the door to her cage staring at her! She didn't actually seem to be scared by the kitty and the cat wasn't acting mean, but I shooed it away. It was kind of sweet though that Tallulah was much calmer when I held her and talked to her. She was grinding her teeth some of the time though because she was so upset
Well, it looks like all our suspicions were correct! Tallulah does indeed have mites. The vet did a skin scraping and then actually called me into the back room to look at them under the microscope! EW. There were two in that tiny sample. So all the itchy bumps I've been getting are Tallulah's mites chowing down on me. The vet prescribed Revolution for her and Rory, she put the goo behind Tallulah's head there at the office and gave me some to put on Rory. The medicine is good for a full month, so they shouldn't need any more! We were planning to bring Monroe home on April 13th, exactly a month from now, but depending on what the vet says at her 2 week check up, we might need to bump it back to make sure there are no more mites. The good thing is that they die within a day or two of not having a bunny to eat. My bites should go away soon too because this kind of mites feeds on bunnies, not people- I just keep re-infesting myself when I hold Tallulah and Rory. Rory has no symptoms, but he needs to be treated too. Thankfully, this kind of mite doesn't go after rats, hamsters and birds so they don't need treatment.
Tallulah also got some Enroflaxicin, an antibiotic, to treat her runny nose. The vet said she has an upper respiratory infection. My poor girl... I'm really glad to finally get her treated though! If we had had this vet a month ago when I took her in last, her mites would be gone and her respiratory infection would be gone too. Once her mites and infection are gone, she should start growing more and not have a runny nose and she should be able to stomach her food better. It makes me cry to think my poor girl has been suffering like this for so long. The antibiotic should start showing results in 4 days and she'll take it once a day for 14 days. And like I said before, the vet scheduled a follow up exam in two weeks.
Tallulah is so happy to be home! She amazed me by not peeing until she got to her litter box, what a good girl! After peeing, she immediately checked her food bowl. Typical
On a different note, I found one of my ratty girls dead last night :cry4:It's Peppermint Rattie, my favorite of the three ladies. She was a super sweet girl and looked perfectly healthy before she died. Now Stevie is the only girl left. I'm glad I got Colby last August because now Stevie won't have to be alone, she seems sad without her sis. Stevie is the dominant one and is subdued today. I don't think she's sick, just misses her cuddle buddy, even if she and Minty used to get into tiffs a lot. I took more pictures of the ratties and even a video on Saturday, which I'm so glad for. Here are some of the last pictures of Peppermint:
It seems like just a couple weeks ago that Peppermint was a little baby, stuffing herself with so much food that I was concerned she was overeating. She and Cranberry and Stevie used to all be able to lie down in their food bowl together. I'm going to focus on really enjoying my remaining time with Stevie and Colby Jack now, I'm going to always be afraid to find one of them dead since Cranberry and Peppermint both died very suddenly and appeared healthy before.
