Feather - Day 6 & 7

I didn't post yesterday as I felt sure that I'd lose Feather, but he lives to fight another day.

Yesterday morning I booked him another vet appointment for Saturday (today) because there was still no improvement and yesterday afternoon he took another sudden downturn with burning hot ears and a clearly very sore tummy. I spent hours working to convince him to take just a bit of food and water, as I knew he had no chance of survival without food. All up he would've had 72g of Critta Care and over 100mL of water.

This morning he was back to his bright perky self, though still refusing to eat or move. So off we went to the vets. I was offered two choices, stronger AB's or an x-ray. I went with x-ray as I wanted to be certain what we were dealing with. So I left him there and drove back at midday. They were able to x-ray him without anaesthesia which was a plus but the results weren't so good. Firstly the bloody urine is caused by a very small bladder stone, one that's rather pointy and clearly cutting into the bladder wall. The constant pain, weight loss, refusal to eat and drink etc is cause by peritonitis. Basically an inflammation of the abdomen wall. The bladder stone is small enough that Feather 'could' pass it, but if he can't surgery isn't an option until the peritonitis is fixed. Right now if they attempted surgery he would die pretty much instantly.

So Feather's back home with a very large amount of metacam so at the very least we can keep him comfortable. He's also on a large dose (for a guinea pig anyway) of metronidazole. American's would call it Flagyl, English call it Torgyl and us aussies call it metronidazole. Unfortunately, since in Aus it's not normally given to pigs, it came in pill form, at a dose more suitable for large dogs. So I'm left splitting the tablets and suspending the crushed half tablet in water to get a semi-accurate dose. The vet originally wanted to prescribe oxytetracycline, but although I know some pigs can stomach it, a lot can't and I'd rather keep it for use solely as a topical antibotic. But my handy Disease of Domestic Guinea Pigs book helped us find a suitable alternative.

So Feather is to be given the metronidazole and the metacam daily, plus he has to be kept over-hydrated and well fed to see if we can flush his system out and nip this in the bud. He'll go back to the vets on Tuesday for another x-ray.

Anyway I brought home copies of Feathers x-rays so when I get a minute I'll post em up.

Best of all? two weeks worth of metronidazole and metacam plus the xrays only came to $162. So I'll be able to afford the next lot of x-rays and surgery if that is what is needed.