About a month ago, my guinea pig, Peebee , had a mite infestation for the first time in his three years of life. I took him to the vet, got him all fixed up from the mites issue, and set up a two week checkup. In my most amazingly scatterbrained moment of this past year, I showed up exactly a week early. I’m really glad and lucky that the vet agreed to do a quick check on him anyway, and sent me off to make an appointment three weeks from then for a final check-up and another dose of the monthly flea medications that he would be taking regularly to keep the mites away.
Around Wednesday of last week, Peebee started to swell up a little bit on his underside. Initially, it didn’t look like anything but him getting fat, so I shrugged it off until I picked him up on Thursday and he looked swollen. Upon calling the vet, they assured me that it could wait until my scheduled appointment on Tuesday (yesterday) as long as he was still eating, breathing, drinking, and running around like he normally does. He was doing all of that, and with a little bit more enthusiasm than usual, so I waited the weekend. He got worse, and by last night when I took him to the vet, he was swollen up like the guinea pig equivalent of a 700 lb. man.
Last night at the vet, they did some bloodwork, and it appears that his albumin levels were extremely low, which was what was causing the swelling. They will have him for the next couple of days so that they can do tests to determine whether his liver is failing to produce albumin or his kidneys are excreting an excessive amount of albumin into his urine. I just don’t feel good about the whole situation, as I have a feeling that he’s coming to the end of his little pigger life at three years old. In some ways, I wish there was more I could do, but I don’t want to prolong any potential suffering he may have, and I’ve already paid a shockingly large amount in vet bills for this 2-3 day stay at the vet for testing.
At this point, I’m a bit worried, but I also realize that it probably is time to start letting go, as I have serious doubts that he’ll make it through all of this. (I’ve got a feeling that his liver isn’t producing albumin anymore, as the quickness in which he’s put on the weight that’s causing his edema doesn’t seem like a sudden development of his kidneys deciding that they’re going to pee out all his albumin.) I think I got all my crying out last night, but tonight when I get home, I’m going to have to clean his cage and wait until the vet calls over the next couple of days to tell me what to expect. At least they’re all really sweet, loving people at the vet, and I feel comfortable that, if I have to prevent him suffering by putting him to sleep, he’ll be as safe and happy with them holding him one last time as with me. It doesn’t make me any less sad as when I had to say goodbye to my other guinea pigs that I had before him.
