Today has been a horrid day. I didn't have much time to clean people out during the week so I planned a big cleaning blitz today. Oddly enough I was really looking forward to it. Not so much the shovelling vast quantities of poo bit but just spending the day in there with everyone and getting everything sorted out.

So the first cage I cleaned was that of Donkey, Smokey, Dre and Eminem the degus. They were two separate pairs up until last week when I introduced them. They had seemed to be getting on well together but today I found fresh blood in the cage. Donkey was looking a bit sorry for himself so I took him out and found he was limping. So I called the vets, got an appointment for two o'clock and went back to my cleaning. I did a few more cages and then got to the cage containing Nadia, Whiskers, Biggles and Pretty the degus. There I found more fresh blood and began to wonder what on earth was going on. Everyone in that cage looked fine in themselves, all bright and active, but Nads was my prime suspect as she has two hernias and I was worried something had happened with them. Well it was even worse than I had imagined. When I picked her up and looked underneath I found that she had a prolapse coming from her girly area. I knew this was very bad news indeed. So she was duly added to the vets appointment an off we went.

Donkey should be fine..no apparent break so probably just a sprain/bruising. He has had metacam and baytril and we'll see how he gets on.

Nads' outlook is very bleak but I wasn't willing to give up on her just yet. The vet we saw was very nice but a) didn't seem quite knowledgable enough about rodents for me to be totally confident in her judgement and b) suggested that there was a very small chance that things could be repaired with surgery, which was enough for me to latch on to. At the moment Nads is her usual, incredibly evil self. When I was cleaning her cage out she was running in her wheel. At the vets she climbed up me and sat on my shoulder chirping in my ear twice. To me that's not the actions of an animal in terrible pain. So we decided to see how she goes until Monday when Sandra Super Vet is back from her holidays. If anyone can fix her, Sandra can. In the meantime she is also on Baytil and Metacam and we have to watch very closely to make sure she can wee and poo. I've seen her poo for definite, so we're just waiting in hope that she shows us she can still wee ok too. If at any time this weekend she looks to be suffering we will of course take her back and do whatever needs doing :(

I have no idea if I have done the right thing and I think there is a very good chance that we will have to let her go on Monday but I just couldn't bring myself to send her on her way while there was a chance (however small) something could be done for her and while she was still so bright and active.

Please keep her in your thoughts. She is an incredibly special little girl who drives me mad most of the time but I have an enormous amount of admiration and love for her.