Friday, August 04, 2006

Bad Daddy, Sad Daddy

So, here it is almost midnight on Thursday night- I need to pack for my trip to NYC tomorrow and get some more rest, as I’m still dealing with this godforsaken cold (at least it’s not bronchitis again * knocking on wood *) and also since I hardly got any sleep last night.
“Why is this?” you may ask.
Well, kids, last night I did a very bad thing. I let Fry and Leela out for their exercise time and Fry wasn’t really having any of it, being all difficult to catch and then being super grumpy sitting in his corner if the pen, sulking. It was bath day and Leela was totally oblivious to Fry emotional state, going in and out of the bathhouse. Finally, when Fry got in, he stayed in, perched on the entrance and just stayed there for at least 10 minutes.
The time came to grab them and put them back, as I needed to get to sleep. Again, Leela was no problem but Fry, on the other hand, was just difficult. I finally got a hold of him and, wanting to check out a bald spot above his tail to make sure hair was growing back in, I turned his face away from mine and inspected the afore-mentioned area. At that point, he must have gotten really agitated and bit my finger!
I instinctively reacted and let him go, basically having him fall six feet to the floor. That probably wouldn’t have been such a problem if he hadn’t hit the metal edge of the exercise pen. He landed kinda askew and it looked as if he injured one of his front paws. I immediately placed him back in the cage and he hopped into a corner at the bottom level and just started whimpering. It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever heard. Knowing it was my reaction to his bite just filled me with such guilt I couldn’t handle it. I called Munsen and told her what happened, planning on calling the vet in case I needed to take him in immediately. She empathized and let me go on with my other calls. The animal hospital almost calmed me down and I settled on an appointment for this evening (mind you, I haven’t even gotten a carrier for them yet- I just won an eBay auction for one this past Monday). I took my Nyquil and went to bed.
That didn’t really help matters much- I was so anxious since the whole biting/injury kept going through my mind (kinda like the Brady Bunch when Peter broke Mrs. Brady’s favorite vase- “Mom always said don’t play ball in the house”), which made me go and check on Fry each time. I think I finally got to sleep around 2 AM.
The first thing I did was go and check on the poor little guy. I fed him a piece of shredded oat and he took it and took his time eating it, while Leela snarfed hers down. He took so long that she grabbed his last few bites and ate it herself. Then I went in to work (my first day back since Monday), the whole day preoccupied with my feelings of guilt. My friends at work were all consoling me, telling me that it was the natural thing to do when one gets bitten and his injury wasn’t my fault. It made me feel worse. On my lunch break, I bought a small plastic carrier to take him to the vet and, as soon as I got home, I got him ready. He barely fit in the thing and I also placed an icepack wrapped in a towel underneath him, so he would stay cool in this crazy heat.
When I met the Doctor, I told her what happened and she actually checked him out, showing me new, effective ways to hold a chinchilla down (at least so they don’t bite) and checked him out.
Turns out that he had cracked a tooth, which explains the way he was eating. There were no other injuries, thankfully, and she calmed me down relating a similar story about her ferret losing two teeth in a similar fashion. She told me she’d have to operate on him, basically cutting off the broken bit and filing his tooth down and asked me to come back in a couple of hours.
I spent some time at The Theatre with Munsen and went to pick him up. The vet explained in further detail what she did and how I’m to administer an antibiotic, painkiller, and liquid diet orally (with syringes, natch) for the next seven days and to monitor his pooping.
So, I borrowed a cat carrier from my friend Moses and he’s coming with me to NYC!

1 Comments:

At 8/05/2006 9:06 PM , Blogger STEPHEN GREGORY SMITH said...

Poor Fry! I did the same thing with my hamster in high school, except it flew and hit the brick fireplace and died!
Sorry about your cold, Matty and I got it too...and consequentially, so did Eleasha!

 

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