Very bad news

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

lmw142

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 8, 2013
Messages
83
Location
Michigan
So roughly a month ago I took my hedgehog, Sonic, to the vet because she had a small lump on her face. She is over 4 years old, so I suspected cancer, and unfortunately I was correct. Surgery was inadvisable, since the tumor was very close to her nasal cavity. The vet was worried that it would do more harm than good.

A month later she is still doing pretty well. We have her on Piroxicam every night for pain. She is still eating and running on her wheel all night. The tumor is growing, but for the moment we're just waiting to see how it develops.

Then a couple weeks ago, my other hedgehog Garnet (~2 years old) threw up one morning and stopped eating or drinking on her own. I brought her to the vet (not the one I usually go to, she was out of the office) and she couldn't find any medical reason for it. She prescribed Pepcid and that helped with the vomiting, so I syringed her some pedialyte hoping she would eat on her own.

She still didn't eat after another day, so I got Hills A/D and started syringe feeding her. She took it surprisingly well. After a couple days of that she started drinking water, then the next day she ate some chicken baby food and mushed up banana on her own (banana has always been one of her favorites).

After that she kind of plateaued. She continued to eat a bit of baby food and drink her water in addition to the syringe feedings, but she would not eat her dry kibble for anything. I crushed it, I mixed it with baby food, I added gravy from wet cat food. Nothing worked.

Then after another couple days I noticed that her gums were swollen on one side of her mouth. So, back to the vet we went (our usual vet this time), expecting an infected tooth, or something similar. The vet expected the same thing and put her under anesthesia to check it out.

A little while later the vet tech came back in with Garnet, and said the vet would be in shortly. When she came back in, I knew something was wrong. First of all, she was carrying a freshly hatched baby emu, and secondly she looked like she was about to cry.

She said she brought in the emu as a buffer because she had some very bad news. Garnet also has oral squamous cell carcinoma. The same diagnosis I got for Sonic a month ago. Her cancer is also inoperable (the vet said is covers most of the top of her mouth). So she is on the same Piroxicam regimen as Sonic.

So now I have two terminally ill hedgehogs, and I'm really dreading the decisions I'm going to have to face soon.
 
Oh no. I'm so sorry to hear this. My first, Satin, was diagnosed with SCC in her lower jaw. She was on Piroxicam too. I could see that it was definitely making a difference in addressing discomfort and pain. And, of course, the hope was that it also had an effect on slowing the progression of the SCC as it's been shown to do in other species.

Give your kiddos all the love and snuggles they need.

It's going to be hard, heck it already is, isn't it. I'm sorry. But you're going to be okay. You're going to be there for them, giving them their meds and their soft food, and all the love and snuggles they can stand. They'll let you know when it's time.

Sending hugs
 
I've been checking Sonic and Garnet's thread every day and sending them good vibes.

I hope the SCC is slowed by the Piroxicam and they have lots of happy snuggles with you in the future.
 
Thank you! I love this forum, everyone is so supportive. It's hard going through this and not really having anyone in 'real life' to talk to about it because their reaction is always, "Well, they're just hedgehogs..."

They have both been getting lots of snuggles. Last night I accidentally fell asleep with Sonic. I don't think she minded lol. We were cuddled up together watching tv, and then I woke up about 3 hours later. She was all sprawled out cuddled into my side and she huffed at me when I woke her up.

Unfortunately, Sonic's tumor is spreading, and I think it is growing up into her eye. Her left eye is bulging out a bit and it doesn't seem like she can see on that side. The good news is, it doesn't seem to be hurting her. She let me touch her face around it and didn't react, and she is still eating, drinking, and running on her wheel. Just in case it does start bothering her I got some Tramadol from the vet to keep on hand for pain.

Garnet is still doing well. She started eating on her own again after getting the Piroxicam. She is much more active now too, so I think it is helping her feel better.
 
Garnet is doing great so far. She actually just started eating hard kibble (crushed) again a couple days ago.

Sonic is having some issues with her eye, it is kind of popping out and looks really gooey. Unfortunately my vet is out of town at a conference right now (I know that she is so good at what she does because she goes to all these things, but it can be at the most inconvenient times!). I have been giving her the Tramadol, since I'm assuming that has to be painful, but she is still eating, drinking, and running on her wheel.

My vet is back on Thursday, so we're kind of just holding on until then, and then we will get her opinion on what to do. I don't want to euthanize her yet, since she is still behaving normally, but I also don't want to put her through a surgery that may do more harm than good.
 
That's really encouraging news for Garnet. I hope things continue that way for her.

With any luck, Sonic can get in to see the vet now that she's back. Hopefully, she can offer you some options that you haven't explored yet. Though, overall, it sounds like things are progressing quickly. I'm sorry :( Give Sonic an extra snuggle for me and let her know I'm rooting for her.
 
More news on Sonic: yesterday I had to take her into the vet, even though the one we normally see wasn't there. When I woke up in the morning she was making whimper noises, so I checked on her, and the skin around her eye had broken open and was bleeding. We got her in to the vet and they removed they eye, debulked some of the cancer tissue, and stitched it closed. We are now flushing the area with an antimicrobial twice daily, applying ointment, and they have her on amoxicillin because it looked like it was starting to get infected.

She is drinking water, but not eating on her own today. She tried, but I think it hurt too much, so we syringe fed her some A/D this morning, she would only take about 1.5 mL, but we will try again later. Before the surgery she was eating plenty and very active, so we're hoping once she recovers from the surgery she will pick back up again.

Later when I have more time I will post some pictures. In the meantime she is getting plenty of snuggles. After her surgery she spent most of the day napping in my sweatshirt.
 
Sonic ate on her own last night! She had some Hills A/D and chicken and sweet potato baby food. She didn't seem at all interested in it when I gave it to her last night, but I woke up this morning and it was all gone :)
 
Always feels good when you know the food made it to their bellies. I hope the surgery buys her more time where she's feeling good and doing all the good hedgie things. Wheeling, eating, drinking, pooping up a storm...
 
On Friday we had to make a trip to the vet for Garnet. Her mouth was bleeding, but it stopped quickly. The vet checked her out and said her bottom teeth are cutting the tumor on the top of her mouth, and that is why it bled. So she is on antibiotics too.

Other than that both of them are doing great. I got them some wax worms to try, and they are both still a little confused by them. I did mash a few up and mix it with their baby food though, and they didn't even notice the difference! They have both lost a little weight since the start of this, so I hope that will give them a boost and they can gain it back.

Sonic's eye is looking so much better! It is healing up quite nicely, and her appetite just keeps getting better and better. She is chomping away at her ground hard kibble, and of course she is appreciative of all the extras she has been getting. She's still a little angry that she can't have her wheel at the moment, but tomorrow I think we might try some supervised running time and see how that goes.
 
Ouch for Garnet! I wish those tumors would stop growing.

One thing I found amazing about Satin is that she absolutely insisted on eating her hard kibble - right up to the end. I'd downsized it to RC Kitten and Baby Cat and, of course, offered multiple options for soft food all the time. But she wanted to keep crunching away. So I let her.

Guess it's just the hedgie way :)

Sending more hugs!
 
Okay, neither of the pokies ate last night. I'm not sure why they both decided to go on food strike, but we're syringing them today, and I hope they will eat tonight. My boyfriend was in charge of meds last night and he forgot about their Pepcid, so I'm hoping they just had upset stomachs because of that.

Cross your fingers and wish us luck!
 
Back
Top