Rat alert!
August 11, 2007 - A week ago I saw
Pancho's head tilt slightly to the left. When
it hadn't cleared up the next day, but in fact had gotten worse, I took him
to the vet (yes, even on a
Sunday). The vet agreed with me he very probably had an inflammation of the
middle ear
(otitis
media). I got antibiotics and took a tilting but otherwise fine
looking Pancho back home.
On Wednesday it turned out
Pancho wasn't the only rat in the lowland of
Holland to suffer from otitis media. In fact he was the
9th who was reported to
The Rat Sewer, and so an
"official" warning (called a
RatAlert!)
was issued.
However, it wasn't until yesterday that my own internal
warning system went to red alert: I discovered that
Lefty had a swollen, squarish nose. I thought it
might be related to Pancho's illness, and then
perhaps the other three were also infected... !
But as it turned out, Lefty is missing one of his upper incisors (and he
has no idea where he's last seen it *LOL*), which caused the lower incisor
to overgrow. The vet has trimmed his lower incisors, and she has prescribed
antibiotics to take care of an inflammation Lefty has where his missing
upper incisor was supposed to be.
Meanwhile Pancho showed
absolutely no signs of improvement, but this isn't uncommon with otitis
media. Nevertheless I've asked the vet to extend his treatment with
another broad-spectrum antibiotic. Although he looks rather cute with his
head-tilt, I'd rather have him back to normal ASAP.
Lefty is still a bit shaky, because he's had his teeth trimmed
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