We brought our new pet rat, Tiffany, home from the Humane Society only a month ago, to fill the hole in my heart left by a few of our older rats dying of brain and mammary cancer respectively. Right from the start, she was sweet and eager to please, and loved running around the rat room. She was timid about climbing and jumping at first - I suspect she may have been kept in a small cage, sadly - but soon learned to love the big cage and big playtime space she had.
I've been crying so hard for this little lost life and I don't know how to process this guilt and sorrow.
On Wednesday morning, my husband was in the rat room taking his shoes off. Unfortunately, our sweet 3-month-old Tiffany was running around the room and ran straight under his foot as he put it back down on the ground. He put his foot squarely on her body - and although he immediately lifted it back up, the damage was done.
We rushed her to the vet, got x-rays, and she looked okay at the time, but she got steadily worse between Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoon.
We gave her morphine (as prescribed by our vet), but she just lay there on her side the whole time, occasionally trembling, working her jaw, etc. She never got back on her feet again.
On Saturday evening, we had to come to grips with the fact that she was getting worse and worse and was in constant pain. We took her to the emergency vet to be put to sleep. It was for the best, as she was starting to bleed - clearly there had been some internal damage that the x-rays didn't pick up.
I am so sad because Tiffany was so young - only about a tenth of the way through her normal lifespan - and so sweet, and just learning how to run around and climb and do all the normal rat things. She deserved to live a long and happy life and eat lots of treats. A stupid accident just changed her life for the worse, and it makes me so upset. I can't stop crying.
We're going on a long-planned Disney vacation tomorrow, but needless to say it's going to be tough to have the thrilling time we were hoping for.
