Category: Data’s tales

This Spock will drive us crazy

~ MM ~ Leave a comment

data_profile_2It’s been two weeks from our last post and much happened with Spock in the meanwhile. And it’s still not over.

He started eating veggies for few days, but it was obvious something was still bothering him. We all supposed it’s just due to the psychological trauma. He was not touching the hay, although it was clear he would love to. The humans tried some fancy hay in fancy paper bags and still nothing.

His birthday passed uncelebrated, but filled with worries.

Two days after it, last Friday evening, the human female took him out for a check-up, including weight. And she noticed a lump on his jaw, on the left side of his head. That was a horrible moment. She immediately called the veterinary clinic and took an emergency appointment with our vet who, fortunately, had consultations on Saturday too.

The vet was shocked to see him, as she thought he was on his way to recovery. And the option she gave for the lump were not the brightest… Either a tumour, either an abscess. If an abscess (a better news than a tumour), still the chances of a full recovery were not 100%. He got an appointment for Tuesday for anaesthesia, x-ray and surgery, if it was prove to be an abscess.

We’ve spent Saturday afternoon being gloomy. The worst of us was the human female who was crying and sobbing all the time. Spock went once again on Critical Care and lots of TLC.

Sunday evening it seemed like the whole house made peace with the situation. And we were decided to make the best of it. If it was a tumour, everyone was decided to take care of him as good as we could until it wouldn’t be possible anymore. If it proved to be an abscess, to give him the best shot and surgery.

In the meanwhile the human female made a lot of research, got in contact with a second vet and hoped it was an abscess.

Spock spent Tuesday morning in the office with the human female. He looked better after some normal feeds of Critical Care and even gained weight. Because he was quite scared in an unknown environment, he spent around two hours on the human female’s lap being very calm and relaxed.

At 11 am he went under anaesthesia. At 3 pm the news were pretty good, that the surgery went well. Well, if it was a surgery than for sure it wasn’t a tumour!

The human female went to pick him up and had a debriefing with the vet. It was a nasty abscess, hidden behind the muscle. Unfortunately the cause was not obvious, so the vet could say what was the source. But she managed to clean it well, left the incision opened (even stitched the muscle to stay opened at least 5 days) so it can be cleaned daily at home.

Spock looked awful. The human female turned white when she first saw him. And he was more like a veggie.

Once at home, he was isolated from me. This I don’t really understand, but as long as I can see him and sniff him through the fence, it’s fine. Apparently they need to keep an eye on how much he eats exactly.

The human female spent the next two days working from home just to stay close to him and make sure he manages to survive. First day when she had to flush the wound, she was literally freaking out. But she managed. Today was the third time and she seemed better prepared already.

Spock started chewing veggies less than 24h after the surgery, but no hay. Until this morning when we saw him delicately munching some. We all stopped breathing and became very quiet just not to distract him.

I would say that he is not cleared yet, but we are optimistic. We are still afraid for him, but we hope he will make a full recovery. And we also hope he understands he needs to eat hay! It’s a must for keeping his teeth well. I keep telling him this… He looks normal, not shaggy and miserable anymore.

I’m not going to share a photo with his head as it looks right now as it is not at all flattering. But I’ll share a photo of him on the lap of the human female.

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Happy birthday Spock! Live long and prosper!

(I’ve heard the humans would like to move into another appartment. You need to be healthy so we can pee together all over the floor. 😀 )

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Update on us

~ MM ~ 6 Comments

data_profile_2OMG! More than one month since our last post… Auch! Oups! Agrhhhh!

To be honest, we are very busy keeping away from the Little Rascal. And training her for our future benefit. But human kids are more difficult to be trained than guinea pigs pups. Of course, everything is more difficult with humans!

So, this is an update on us and our projects, just to assure you we are still alive.

The book had a setback but now it seems to be getting on the right track again. Hopefully it will come out this spring.

Worf and Kirk were separated following Worf’s decision that he can’t stand sharing the same room with Kirk. Weird… Now Worf is always at the fence and chit chatting with us. We are even considering accepting to share a bigger room with him. And the crazy humans are considering getting (maybe!) another flat mate for Kirk. But all this decisions would have to wait until later this spring when the human female will be at home with the second human baby.

Worf even lost some weight due to the stress. And we were quite upset with Kirk. I mean, come on! You are a great psychiatrist but you can’t see the stress signs in your own flat mate?!

And Spock has some dental issues. Probably. I mean it looks like this, but the vet has still to confirm and to treat whatever it is. The thing is that he looks miserable, tries to eat but obviously can’t manage to chew hard veggies like fennel. So he will be on a course of Critical Care until Friday when he gets to the vet.

I am fine, just one fatty eye to report. But nothing serious.

Kirk seems fine too. Even popcorning from time to time. By the way, 2 weeks ago was his birthday. He got lots of pellets. Us too. 😀

Before going back to our book and managing that project, I’ll insert some recent photos of us.

Kirk on his birthday

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Spock and I few days ago (Spock was still fine at the time)

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Worf

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The new set up of our apartment. Not ideal, but it should get better in two or three months.

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We utterly dislike DHL

~ MM ~ 3 Comments

data_profile_2It took me a while to decide to write this one down. Especially that I am supposed to be the nicest one. And just because of that I was offered volunteer to be the social media manager and the spokepiggy of the group. But in this case I can’t be nice anymore…

We have a preferred supplier for our pellets, hay and puppy pads. It is zooplus.be. Until January this year we were super happy with them. The HF was ordering on line, using the ‘plastic money’, as one of our regretted friends used to say, and the orders were delivered from Belgium with DPD. Two days after the products were at our door. OK, at her office’s door, but that was close.

Since the beginning of this year, zooplus changed something. They are delivering in Belgium from Germany using DHL and TNT. As we order once per month, we’ve started noticing hiccups in the delivery process. It was never that bad, so we just accepted the facts. But this month everything went wrong and we ended up starving for two days. Like literally starving, not just as a figure of speech.

The HF placed an order on Friday, April 29th thinking that it will be delivered on Monday, May 2nd when the HM was at home. But it didn’t happened… Tuesday there was no parcel waiting for them when arriving home. Wednesday the HF was at home (when she was not out with the Little Human Brat), but no delivery either. At 5 p.m. on the DHL website it was still marked as ‘out for delivery’.

Thursday it was a Bank Holiday in Belgium so the HM checked again the website, curious where the parcel ended. Well, apparently they tried to deliver at 5:41 p.m., nobody was at home and they left a notice in the mail box. Just that Wednesday at that time everybody was at home. And there was no paper in the mail box!

Friday the HF checked again the website and the parcel was once again ‘out for delivery’. Just to be sure, she called the client service and she surprisingly found out that yes, it was out for delivery, but not to our address. The parcel had been sent to a collecting point. Luckily for all of us, it was just one block away. And by noon we had our supplies at home thanks to the HF who went to pick them up.

Now the problem is that our pellets were finished on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday evening, Thursday the whole day and Friday morning we had no pellets. I mean it! No pellets! This was horrible. And as we all thought we will be delivered on Wednesday by 6 p.m. nobody went to buy a bag from the supermarket. On Thursday they were all closed. We had to eat only fresh veggies and hay. And we love our pellets…

All I can say is that we need to re-evaluate this on line ordering thing. We really like zooplus, but we dislike DHL. Maybe we would motivate the HF to order one week in advance and to ask from the beginning the parcel to be delivered in the collecting point.

For now all I can say is that I wish to the DHL drivers to be left out of pellets for few days just to get to see what is like. (And please remember that I am the nice one! Just imagine what the others are thinking. Spock is already plotting a revenge.)

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