Razzle's been doing great...he came home on Friday and rested up a bit. By Saturday night, he was looking fantastic! Bright, alert, sniffy and curious. I cut up some white-meat chicken and mixed it up with some baby-food pears and cut up fresh cherries...he LOVED it. He had his feet in the bowl trying to get as much of it as possible and licked the bowl clean. It was so good to see him eating like that again. His poos are back to normal color/consistency. He didn't run much on his wheel though - just a few minutes.
Last night, I gave him more of the chicken, pear & cherries combo and again he snarfed it. He's still taking medicines, but is on a MUCH lower dose of his heart meds. He is also taking Pepsid....yes, as in that stuff you take for heart-burn. It's to help calm his stomach and prevent him from throwing up his medicines.
However, last night we did have a couple scares. I gave him a couple of his meds, then took a break. We watched a little TV with Razzle (he hogs the remote!). He was sniffing around and active for a while, but then curled up to take a nap. I figured he was sleepy, so I let him go back to his igloo, but he still had a couple more meds to take. I gave him his last round of meds of the night and he immediately started throwing up again. :( I am worried sick when this happens...it's bad for his heart, it's bad for his kidneys...I don't want him to get dehydrated. Afterwards, he seemed fine...he went over to his food and ate the rest of his chicken, cherries & pears. He also ate some of his crunchies and drank some water w/Pedialyte. He went back over to his crunchies bowl and started eating and at one point, I thought he was choking!!! Then I realized that one of his crunchies got caught on the roof of his mouth. Razzle was struggling...even made a little "squeak" noise. The best thing to do is to let him try and work it out himself. Picking him up could make things worse. I could tell he could breathe...so it was a matter of letting his saliva moisten the kibble so it would dislodge. It did finally...and he simply ate the kibble and went on his merry way. Whew...
I have been crushing up his kibbles but apparently he must have gotten one that was just a bit too big, or an odd size or something. So now, all kibbles will be reviewed for size/shape so this won't ever happen again. Uggh...poor Razzle!! Apparently, this is more common than we think. I have only witnessed it a few times, but it is never an easy thing to see.
I woke up at 5:30AM this morning to hear Razzle crunching away on his kibbles. I went to spy on him, and he saw me...but kept on crunching! He even came over to me and sniffed at me to let me know he knew I was there. Hee hee...you got to get up pretty early in the morning to pull a fast one on that hedgehog. I watched him eat: he ate a good amount of his crunchies - then back into his igloo for the day. He didn't run a whole lot overnight, but he did leave a lot of brown poos around. :)
I called his doctor today to ask what we should do about him throwing up....and she said to space out the meds a bit more. Give him the Pepsid first....then wait and give each medicine separately. I thought I was spacing it out, but I am going to space it out even more.
Another tidbit of interest: Razzle's doctor said that he prefers the temperature a little bit cooler than we thought. Most hedgies are comfortable around 75-80 degrees. Some hedgehogs will even attempt hibernation at anything less than that. We've been diligent about the temperature and making sure Razzle is always kept at hedgie-comfort zone of at least 75. However, in the hospital, they noted that Razzle did not like being near the heat. They had provided him with a heating pad, and Razzle stayed as far away from it as he could. So we were advised to keep it a bit cooler for Razzle - 70-75. It's been hot here (90s) so we have the A/C on low in Razzle's room and he does seem to like it a bit "cooler" at closer to 70 degrees. Steve was very thankful. :)
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8:00PM
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I was giving super squirmy Razzle his Pepsid tonight and he squirmed out of control and I accidently got some of his medicine in his eye!!!!!!! :-0 We called Animal 911 and they said he should be ok...but we could rinse his eye with saline solution. I put a few drops of saline in Razzle's eye (poor thing!) but he seems ok and his eye looks fine. Egads...
Surprisingly, this is the first time this has happened in all the time I've been giving Razzle his medicine. Poor baby...I felt so bad. I made him his favorite chicken, pears & cherries treat so hopefully he'll forgive me. Uggh. I still have more of his meds to give him tonight since I am spacing them out more. Hopefully it all goes smooth. My poor little prickly!!
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2 comments:
It's VERY interesting about Razzle's "comfort zone". We haven't told anyone (except Nancy) about this, fearing some people may get the wrong idea and try to keep their hedgehogs too cool, but G prefers to be a bit cool too. He has great tolerance for cooler temperature and hates being warm -- he avoids his heating pad or SnuggleDisc like a plague!
Even when I felt chilly and needed to add a layer of clothing, G was completely indifferent and carried on with his normal activities (we have an old drafty Victorian house and the temperature had dropped to 66º - 68ºF on those occasions without us knowing it). We usually keep him in the 70º - 73ºF range, but It's good to know G isn't a weirdo when it comes to temperature. :)
Hee hee...no G isn't a weirdo! Yes, it is interesting about the temp. - and here I was stressing out about making sure Razzle was warm enough and he was probably wishing he could speak so he could shout, "Enough with the heat already! Even in Africa, it gets cool at night!" :)
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