#pickle the rat

Pickle has officially passed - I was there the entire time, and she was fully knocked out before they injected her heart. I got to hold her steady and once injected it only took a few seconds for her to pass away - it was truly a peaceful experience, and I’m so glad Pickle got to go this way without any extra pain or suffering.

Its so easy to look at how early she passed and feel discouraged by it - but I want to choose to remember her life as it was, happy, energetic, hyper, and and living life to the fullest. It always hurts to see a rat pass, especially as young as Pickle, but I know she lived a good life and I’m glad I was able to do her one last kindness by helping her pass peacefully.

Goodbye Pickle - you were an amazing rat, and I was so lucky to have you <3

(Music credit: “Imagine Dragons - On Top Of The World”)

Here’s a compilation of some of my favorite tricks that Pickle learned - she’s only been with me for a little over 13 months, but she’s always been so confident and sweet and she’s picked up so many tricks so quickly!

On Monday morning I will be taking Pickle in to be humanely euthanized - I’ve decided its not fair on her to keep putting her through procedures like tooth trimming when she has no hope of recovery. I want her to go when she still has a good quality of life, and that’s clearly starting to dip now. This is the part I hate about having such short lived pets like rats - nonetheless I don’t regret getting her or any of my rats, and I’m happy that she got to have a good and happy life, even if it is being cut way too short.

(Music credits: “Mischief Maker” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Hey guys, so I wanted to give you an update on Pickle.

So Pickle had her 3rd vet visit today (3 in 2 weeks, poor girl ), and the news isn’t great. I haven’t updated since her first vet visit, but after her second visit the vet was optimistic that we had been wrong, and that she simply had an abscess instead of an abscess + zymbal’s gland tumor. The first time he had diagnosed her off symptoms alone, as a biopsy here wouldn’t do much other than tell us if its a tumor + abscess, or just an abscess, and since the tumor is not removable and the abscess placement makes removing it surgically very risky, the biopsy wouldn’t change out treatment plan at all regardless of results.

So after the 2nd visit when the abscess opened up on its own, he was able to remove a lot of cheesy pus and then the facial lump seemed a lot smaller. This is why he changed his diagnosis, because she seemed to be healing nicely and not developing other symptoms.

I wasn’t 100% convinced though, which is why I’ve held off updating. Pickle had lost almost 10% of her body weight in the 9 days between vet visits 1 and 2, plus her jaw misalignment had worsened. So I felt something was off despite her acting normal, and sadly my feeling was right. In the next few days post vet visit 2, Pickles incisors continued to become more misaligned, and she was no longer able to keep them properly trimmed. She also wasn’t gaining weight despite me putting her on a high calorie diet with mainly soft food - it’s slowed the weight loss, but she’s still gradually losing weight

Fast forward to this Tuesday (2 days back), and suddenly things took a turn for the worse. I went to give Pickle her meds, and when I called the rats out for treats, she came out super wobbly and with a clear head tilt. She was very off balance, freaking out if held on her back, trembling as she walked, and I even noticed her eyes moving rapidly, as if she had vertigo. She also couldn’t look down - every time she tried, her head would reflexively jerk up, and she clearly couldn’t control it.

I immediately made another vet appointment, and the soonest they could get me in was Thursday morning (this morning). In the meantime I kept giving Pickle her meds, kept flushing the abscess, and started hand feeding her. I noticed Pickles left ear canal had become completely blocked with pus - this is likely what caused the neurological symptoms. As my vet explained today, the vestibular nerve that controls balance is located there, so being blocked up like this is what caused these symptoms.

Now Pickle actually has improved some since Tuesday - she has pretty much stopped trembling as she walks, can climb up and down without issue, and her head tilt seems to be a bit less prominent. She also regained her appetite, something she lost most of Tuesday. She is still a bit off balance, but her ability to manage it (other than when looking down) seemed to be vastly improved.

Unfortunately it’s these symptoms that made the vet suspect that his first diagnosis of a zymbal’s gland tumor + abscess is actually true. Abscesses tend to stay encapsulated and while they will exert pressure and can grow as they fill with puss, they shouldn’t invade other areas as we are seeing now. So it seems like Pickle has both a deep rooted tumor and an abscess, neither which can be dealt with surgically. So all I can do is keep opening her abscess site (poor girl hates this, but the top skin heals too quickly and I need to remove the scab to flush the inside), flushing it, giving her antibiotics in both oral and drop form, and giving her metacam.

So that brings up the question of quality of life, because now we are seeing some diminishes in it for Pickle. Being off-balance, even if you can deal with it, isn’t fun, and with no end in sight it’s hard know if its worth continuing to treat, especially since we don’t know if the symptoms will resolve even if we manage to get rid of the abscess (if there is a tumor, which is looking extremely likely, then it’ll continue to grow and continue to create more neurological issues). On top of that she has the whole malocclusion thing, and while I’m getting her teeth burred (filed) by the vet on Monday, we don’t know how she’ll tolerate the sedation.

But this is still a stressful procedure, and Pickle is hating all the trips to the vet (they are great with her, but she’s always been more sensitive to new things than her sisters, plus she doesn’t feel great). So now the question is on me - how long is it ethical for me to prolong Pickle’s life, given that she likely will continue to get worse. I’m of 2 minds here - on one hand Pickle is getting around well for now, has a good appetite, and still enjoys free-range and cuddling with her cagemates, so I don’t feel she’s doing too bad currently. But on the other hand her symptoms have progressed rapidly, and she is at least somewhat uncomfortable due to being off-balance and having all that puss in her ear (I’ve seen her shaking her head more recently, which is a sign of discomfort in that area).

It’s such a hard decision, but now that Pickle is starting to go downhill I think I’ll be having her pts sooner than not. I hate it, I was so pleased with last week’s news and was hopeful despite my suspicions, but it looks like we didn’t get that lucky. I will continue to do the best I can for Pickle, but I feel like the end is near.

(Video shows Pickle trying to eat by lowering her head - she only does this when lowering her head (not when walking or lying down), but you can see how difficult this make eating for her)

Here was Pickle weaving with a ball from about a month back - present day Pickle is continuing to do well, although her facial abscess (which is on top of the tumor) did open up yesterday. It doesn’t smell bad, which is interesting because it smelled pretty nasty when it first leaked on Thursday - so hopefully that means the AB’s are doing their job. I’m kinda afraid to flush it due to the location, so we will see what my vet says when we meet up Wednesday for another checkup.

I’ll post some update pictures later showing the progression - thankfully Pickle herself seems to be unbothered and has no issue with me poking around the area either.

Trick tutorial on how to train a rat to weave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bz4EXnFa78

Trick tutorial on training rats to fetch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo

Pickle continues to do well, and she’s enjoying all the extra banana chips she could ask for! As for this clip, this is the last trick clip I recorded with Pickle from last Thursday - here she and Omelet were playing vs basketball, which is pretty much their signature trick because of how much they’ve practiced it (and yet Omelet still missed once lol - hey, she tries her best!)

Trick tutorial on training rats to play basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMf3wUl89nE

Trick tutorial on training rats vs basketball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBaOt2K1hg

Pickle continues to do well, and she is not liking her training retirement much yet lol - she sees me training the other rats and she stares daggers at me for not giving her a turn! I’m giving her yummy treats to compensate though, and she’s enjoying several hours of free-range & foraging daily ❤

As for this clip, I took this back in February when I was teaching Pickle and Egg to wave - this was a clip from Pickles very first time training the wave trick, and she got it so quickly!

How to train a rat to wave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQFSrjemIug

So I’ve stopped training new tricks with Pickle because I don’t want to add any stress to her life right now, however I have some trick clips of her that I have yet to post from before, so I’m going to post those alongside updates.

As far as today’s update, its mainly good news - Pickle has responded really well to the metacam (although she HATES the taste lol), and is back to being 100% active and playful! Very happy to see her act this way, she really seems to be comfortable and doesn’t seem bugged by the tumor.

Another good thing is that Pickles ear infection has cleared up - the ear drops + antibiotics have done an amazing job, and while she’ll continue to be on them, I’m glad to see one issue resolved.

Then unfortunately we have some bad news, which is that the tumor is continuing to grow pretty quickly. In addition to that, it seems that she has an abscess on top of the tumor (common with these types of tumors :/ ), and I can see a scab forming on the lump. Once it opens up, we can flush it and treat it like a usual abscess, but in all likelihood it will never heal back up, because the growing tumor behind it will make that impossible.

Right now I’m just happy that Pickle is comfortable and active, and while I hate seeing this progress I’m glad to know that at least Pickle is continuing to do well and enjoy life <3

Hey guys, so unfortunately I have some bad news - Pickle was diagnosed with a zymbal’s gland tumor today. I suspected she had one when I saw the left side of her face swell up this weekend - I went ahead and gave her infant motrin to reduce swelling/any pain, and while the swelling went down, that just made it apparent that she had a small bump between her ear and jaw (see picture 2 & 3 - the lump is on her left side (right in the picture)).

This is a classic location for zymbal’s gland tumors (ZGT’s), and these tumors often present with an abscess or cyst alongside them, making it easy to misdiagnose them if you’re not looking for them. Unfortunately, while this is my first time dealing with ZGT in my own rats, I’ve seen plenty of images and videos of them in other people’s rats, so I immediately had to suspect one :(

So I made an appointment to take Pickle to the vet today, and the vet quickly confirmed my guess. She does indeed have an infection on top of the ZGT, so we are treating that aggressively with antibiotics, ear drops, and metacam.

The tumor itself is always untreatable, as the location makes removing or even debulking it impossible (it’s right next to the jaw, and if removed it would take the jaw and part of the ear - so impossible to do on a living rat. The tumor also tends to grow more aggressively if messed with, making surgery even more risky). These tumors are almost always malignant, meaning they grow quickly and often spread to other parts of the body - but they are so aggressive in growth that often the rat has to be PTS before this. Prognosis is usually 2-4 weeks before needing to euthanize after initial symptoms, and treatment is all about palliative care to make the rat comfortable and reduce any inflammation, pain, and any accompanying infection.

Once the tumor grows too large, it will also begin to shift things around, causing malocclusion and pain. I already see some very slight malocclusion in Pickle, and the lump has grown some even in just the 3 days since it popped up, so we will be watching her quality of life closely from now on. She has another appointment in 9 days to see her progress, and we will determine our continued treatment from there.

Regardless of what we do, Pickle will be put to sleep before the end of May (right before she turns 1.5 yrs…that was going to happen June 8th) - I can’t believe I’m typing this while looking at her now, because she’s still acting so normal and happy. I hate that this tumor is taking away an otherwise healthy and happy 17 month old rat - she’s not even in the old age bracket for tumors yet, and it just feels like she’s being robbed of so much life. I can’t even describe how I’m feeling - I know illness is never fair, but it really feels like Pickle is too young for this shit.

I’m so so sorry Pickle - I will give you the best last few weeks possible, and I promise I won’t let you suffer at the end </3

Pickle working on some scent work - here she has to find and fetch me the cinnamon scented ball!

Trick tutorial on training a rat scent work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os7rOc7EOWI

Trick tutorial for training fetch (the indicator cue Olive is using here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNsALU4xbzo