Coal died! 😭😭😭 just 2 weeks after Squirt dying!!!

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Jen Breen

Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2017
Messages
10
Location
Florida
Our beloved chinchilla Coal who was 9 years old died Feb 2, 2018. He had been sick since early to mid December with and enlarged heart. But he was on medicine for that and was doing good!

Then somehow he ended up getting streptococcus/MRSA on his hind legs. He was put on Cipro for that. The Cipro made him stop eating and drinking though so my husband and I made the decision to stop that med. As soon as the vet opened the next day I let the vet know we stopped the med and he said that was the right decision and that I needed to feed Coal critical care food every 15 minutes to jump start him again. So I did that, I fed him every 15 minutes day and night. And it worked!! Coal started showing interest in food again and started eating on his own and started being active again! In fact on Wed Jan 31 he ran in his wheel multiple times during the day and had a very active 1hr playtime at night. But then on Thurs Feb 1st it was a complete 180. He was really tired and not moving much unless I held him in my arms, then he got perkier. And that night during playtime he climbed over my legs and gave me kisses. But I noticed him having deeper breaths and doing this weird stretch thing. So I rushed him to the pet emergency room where they put him on oxygen and kept him overnight until the exotic vet opened the next morning. When I called the pet emergency room Friday Feb 2nd to check on Coal they said he was very active hopping around and even eating in his own.

So they transferred him over to our exotic vet. And when we got to the exotic vet they said that he was doing very good, very active and hopping around. The vet came into the room and said that she wanted to do X-rays to see what was going on, and we said okay. But while in the table having the X-ray done Coal died!!!!! We asked the vet what caused him to die and she said that she didn’t really know, but she would guess his enlarged heart.

How could Coal go from being so good and active to dying the next minute!?!?!? My husband doesn’t trust that exotic vet anymore and says we will never take another animal there, because we don’t understand what happened!!! It doesn’t make sense!!!

We have lost both of our Chinchillas within 2 weeks of each other now!! Squirt 10 yrs old died Jan 31 2018 due to a GI track infection. Coal 9 yrs old died Feb 2 2018 supposedly due to his heart. We are heartbroken!!!! They were our babies!!
 
Have replied on other thread as well but heartbreaking story :(

I know how you feel when it comes to vets, I'd been to two before having to travel miles in taxis and on trains to get to a good exotics one that could actually help. Nearly lost my Poppy a few times due to incompetent vets thinking they knew what they were doing. But thank god I found one and got some more years with her before I lost her on Friday.

I'd have been very worried about doing X-rays when he'd been so poorly and probably stressed, with the anaesthetics and stuff. Maybe another day or two just to check he'd be ok. They were probably thinking the best thing to do to find out what was going on but obviously he didn't cope well poor little guy.

You obviously wanted to do the best for him and sounds like you did everything you could to help him and give him a good life.
 
I just had something strange go on here, I had one who came down with a eye infection and stopped eating, went to the vet and she said he had some teeth issues but more alarming he had a severely enlarged heart, two days later he went into heart failure and was put down. Two days after that the other two chins (not cage or playmates) both came down with eye infections and one stopped eating. Vet said the one has ulcerations like a virus in his mouth and he has a slightly enlarged heart as with the other one who has a "milder" case. The two living ones are 13, the one who passed was 15. That was 7 days ago and they are on the mend, eating and energy levels have returned so I think the corner has turned for them. I just wonder if something is going around, the dogs are getting flu, humans are getting bad flue, can chins get something bad also?
 
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