Rat Surgery...Really

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a small lump in Black Rat's armpit. (We never could come up with suitable names...so they are now called simply by their color...but that doesn't mean I love them any less.) Fearing the worst, I made an appointment with the vet. That alone was a trick because apparently most vets do not take rat patients. I finally contacted an exotic pet vet and made an appointment. I ended up taking both the rats in cause Grey Rat has been sneezing and getting bloody noses so I thought they might as well both get a check-up. I would like to mention that never have I felt so validated in my love of strange animals as I did at this vet appointment. All the techs and the vet gushed over how cute they were. They also called them by their names "Grey" and "Black" and referred to them as "the patients." Very professional and a little bit strange. So they were both checked out, she prescribed some antibiotics for Grey Rat and confirmed my suspicion that the lump was a mammary tumor. I was given a quote for surgery to remove the tumor. When I realized the cost of the check up alone would be twenty times what a rat cost, I couldn't decide whether I should go ahead with the surgery which was twice that. So I paid for the appointment and antibiotics and tried not to think too much about the fact we might not be buying groceries that week. They said I had two weeks to decide if I would have the tumor removed or else it would cost even more because tumors like this grow so fast. Surgery for a rat. It seemed ridiculous. I put off the decision as long as I could. I kept trying to convince myself that the rat was dying of natural causes and it was okay to just let the tumor stay until she needed to be put to sleep. But every time I settled on this decision I felt so guilty! I think this could stem from my childhood pet trauma. I've had pets "run away" (to the pound...ahem parents...), I've left them in the backyard because I was too busy, I've given them away, I've tried to nurse them back to health and failed, and a few have been set free into the "wild" where I'm sure they met a quick demise. So after literally losing sleep over the situation...really I did...I decided it was just money and I would redeem my past pet failures to save Black Rat. Yeah I felt a little ridiculous. Especially considering the fact that rats generally live for about 2-3 years and our rats are 1 1/2 years old. But I couldn't sit by and watch a tumor take over her body while she slowly died. So my supportive husband, who definitely would not have ever purchased a rat in the first place let alone spent this much money on rat surgery and who probably was wondering what kind of crazy person he had married, drove us down to the vet to drop off Black Rat. She had to stay overnight so they could keep an eye on her. The surgery was successful and she is now back home. We have to keep her in a separate cage from the other rat so that she won't pull her stitches out, we are trying to keep her from climbing around too much, and we have to give her pain medication every twelve hours. I have learned from this that rats do not enjoy having an eyedropper with medicine put into their mouth. I have also learned that the smaller the animal, the harder it is to force anything into their mouth. It is kind of sad to watch her because her incision looks nasty, and she acts really lethargic. But I think they recover quickly and I'm glad we got it removed. I'm sure surgery is pretty traumatic for a rat but hopefully she bounces back quickly. If it makes her feel better, paying for surgery for a rat is probably just as traumatic for people.

Here are some attempted pictures of the incision. I could not get a good picture of it but you can see on her left side they shaved her and she has a pretty long incision starting under her leg.