Just Shirley
Life at the hamster-ranch has been a bit more stressful lately. I now have four hamsters who are approx 1 yr 9 months old. For hamsters, this is getting in the “elderly” zone, particularly for my hybrid dwarf hamsters, Laverne & Shirley. Roborovski hamsters (like my Steven & Sofia) can live well past 2 years old, although Sofia has had health issues for a few months now, and I just discovered a little lump on Steven (he will be going to the vet this week to have it looked at!).
I sometimes find myself swaying into sadness, imagining my life without my little fur friends. This week has been one of the hardest in a while. But then I try to let go of that fear of the future and just try to be in the moment with them. It’s my privilege to give them as happy & healthy of a life that I can, but I can only do that when I’m there with them, engaging with them, taking care of them, doing the hard things (like putting eye drops in Sofia’s eyes 2x a day!) and the easy things (hand feeding eggs to all my elderly hamsters).
Shirley was doing really well up until last week. She had even gained a bit of weight and was starting to look like the Shirley I once knew - round, soft, mellow & happy. And then one day she didn’t eat her eggs. And then the next day she didn’t eat her eggs. Two days without eggs!? I knew this couldn’t be a fluke, so I gingerly dug through her bedding to see what was going on.
I found Shirley there, sleepy and out of it. She would eat eggs if I held them up to her mouth, but would fall asleep in between chews. I found I had to hold the eggs for her because she kept dropping them as she dozed off and wouldn’t bother to find them again. I held her up to my ear and heard tiny, little “clicks” as she was breathing. I knew that wasn’t a good sign, so I brought her to the emergency vet in town (it was a Saturday and at this rate I didn’t think Shirley would make it to Monday without intervention).
It’s still a bit unclear what was wrong with Shirley, but the vet did confirm that her lungs were congested and sent me home with some antibiotics (Baytril), pain killers (Metacam) and probiotics (Bene-Bac). I was also told to give her some hot-steam treatments so help open up her lungs (aka- bring her bin into the bathroom as I shower).
Shirley has improved since last week, but we aren’t out of the woods yet. Until I’m able to make a full video about her journey and (hopefully!) recovery, I’m sharing some videos I have from this past month. She’s just the sweetest little ham and no matter what happens, my life is better having known her tiny soul. I hope you enjoy :)
