Chinchilla Nation » old age http://www.chinchillanation.com The small and furry blog Sun, 27 Mar 2011 11:47:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 Good Night Dee Dee http://www.chinchillanation.com/2009/06/07/good-night-dee-dee/ http://www.chinchillanation.com/2009/06/07/good-night-dee-dee/#comments Sun, 07 Jun 2009 17:00:38 +0000 Ippo456 http://www.chinchillanation.com/?p=464 I’m heartbroken to announce that Dee Dee passed away last night. It’s 2 days shy from a month since she was ill. Yesterday, she showed the same symptoms that she displayed when she was first sick: difficulty breathing, mucus coming out of her mouth, lethargic, etc .. BUT this time her body felt cold. I was honestly scared .. I started her on the same antibiotic again. Towards the end of the night, it became more & more painful for me to observe her .. I feared for the worst. She did pass away peacefully & quickly. I was upset, thinking that she had a good chance of living to a super ripe old age, but that was selfish of me .. it was time for her to go. I buried her in my garden, underneath my begonia flowers.

]]> http://www.chinchillanation.com/2009/06/07/good-night-dee-dee/feed/ 3 Dee’s Vet Visit http://www.chinchillanation.com/2009/05/11/dees-vet-visit/ http://www.chinchillanation.com/2009/05/11/dees-vet-visit/#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 17:19:07 +0000 Ippo456 http://www.chinchillanation.com/?p=405 Quick update on Dee Dee: took her to the vet today and vet diagnosed her with pneumonia. She is on a 7-day course of antibiotic. Good thing is that the inside of her mouth is still pink, which means that the pneumonia hasn’t progressed too far for the lungs to be deprived of oxygen. And she likes the taste of the antibiotic :-) When the vet took a look at Dee Dee, he thinks that she’s a much older hamster (from the lack of fur on her limbs & she has completely silvered) and concluded that she caught the pneumonia probably due to her weak immune system. The vet suggested that I feed her pureed baby food, so I’ll go buy that tonight.

*sigh* I still has so much to learn about aging in hamsters, I wish I had been more prepared. Any suggestions or comments on what to expect from aging hamsters are welcomed.

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