One of the two inevitabilities of life (hint: it's not "taxes")

I can't handle seeing animals in pain. It's not like I'm cold toward people, necessarily, but animals really get to me sometimes. If we watch a kid's movie with anthropomorphized animals in it, and said animals get sad, I usually cry. I just can't stand it. It's something that is very difficult for me to deal with.

My Quincy is dying. It sucks to say it, but it's true. She isn't sick, really. She isn't coughing or wheezing. But she has been slowing down dramatically over the past few days. The rat I once called "big fat meanie" for stealing the food of her sisters is losing weight, and not really eating. We thought she might have had pain in her little hands and feet, because she would pick up a piece of food, hold it for a moment or two, and end up dropping it. She is staying on the ground floor of her cage, too. But it's more than just her extremities. She walks funny, and has been acting confused. This morning I noticed that one of her eyes has turned cloudy and white- and it wasn't like that yesterday. I have a feeling that she can't see very well out of the other one, either, judging by the way she has bumped into things. I got her to drink a little with an eye dropper earlier this afternoon because I realized I haven't seen her drink anything in a few days. She has been working on the same piece of dried pineapple all morning, taking imperceptibly tiny bites. I don't think she is in pain, but she is just fading away. The whole thing is very sad, and very hard for me to deal with. I have never been "the grown up" when a pet has passed away. Earlier this year my family had to put our dog Ivan to sleep. But Ivan has always been my mom's dog, and I hadn't lived in the same house with him for over two years. Quincy can't be put to sleep because no vets around here deal with that sort of thing when it comes to small animals. I have actually only found two vets in the whole city that would even consider seeing her when she was a baby and I thought she had a respiratory infection (I was wrong.) So we are basically playing the worst kind of waiting game.

My dear husband, who loves animals so much and has playtime with our pets every night, tried, I guess, to offer me some words of comfort a few minutes ago when I was telling him how emotionally drained I was feeling these days (in addition to being in the process of losing Quincy, I also had some car trouble this weekend- stressful enough- that ended up draining our bank account, costing twice as much as originally estimated, and we have bills due next week. But I digress.) He said "well, they don't live forever." Yes, thank you, I know that. I can't expect anyone, pets or people, to live forever. But it's hard when my pets still seem so young to me. It's hard seeing a creature I care about changing so much in a matter of a few days- changing for the worse. It's hard because there's nothing I can really do for her. And it's hard because no matter who you are and who is dying, you can never really be prepared- mentally, emotionally- for death. Even if you have a loved one who has been sick or in an accident, there is always a tiny voice in your head that hopes "maybe things will get better. Maybe this isn't the end." Life would be easier if we knew when we, or our loved ones, or our pets, were going to die. I keep thinking of a quote from an episode of the Golden Girls-- "There shouldn't be heart attacks, or cancer, or anything like that. There should just be a certain age where you have to turn your life in, like a library book." Maybe if we knew when our pets' due dates were, it would make it easier when it's time to turn them in. I don't know. I'm sad and I'm rambling.

I'm fairly confident that things are not going to get better with my Quincy. I am sure that there is not going to be a miraculous turnaround here. Which means things are going to get worse- for her, physically, and for me, emotionally. We are certainly in for an interesting week. If you would remember us when saying your prayers, I would certainly appreciate it.

Little baby Quincy, the day after she came to live with us (1 month old)

I sent this picture in to a cute animal website, and Q got featured on there! She got 73 thumbs up.  :)

Working on the "edible log" the rats destroyed in one week. It was probably meant to last much 

longer than that. 

Quincy and Monster used to have a hammock. Then we had to get another hammock because they would fight over who got to stay in the hammock. Even with two hammocks, sometimes they both snuggled up in one. The hammocks kind of fell apart after a while. 

Introducing Glitter to Quincy. Quincy kind of looks like Glitter and Cupcake's momma. So they flipped out when they saw her. Quincy was horrified. This is our size comparison between big fat Quincy (before she went on a diet) and little bitty Glitter (who is still smaller than her sissy, Cupcake)

Quincy, climbing on her cage while the babies are inside exploring. Quincy and Monster HATED it when the babies got to visit their cage. She is waiting for one of them to come close enough for her to punch, in this picture. I'm not kidding. She bopped them all the time. Monster hissed a lot and got so worked up she was bouncing around like hot popcorn. But then, after a few weeks, we cleaned the cage, everyone moved in together, and it was all fine and dandy. 

Quincy today. I took this picture this morning. She is resting a little piece of pineapple on top of her paws because she can't hold onto it very well. I'm sure that there is plenty of pineapple in heaven. And cheese and deli turkey and rotini and chocolate chips and everything else she likes to eat.