Panic is dead.
Dawns on me that you don't know who I mean. I had three rats: Minion, Panic, and Chatter; got them from
faemortel when she moved, and couldn't take them with her. They weren't doing well, but we managed to nurse Minion and Panic back to health, though Chatter was too far gone (she died soon after). Anyway, I haven't talked much about her, because there really wasn't anything to be done. The fact of the matter was that she had a growth or tumour or something, under the skin, on her right side. We weren't sure what it was, but over the last two or three months we've watched it get bigger and bigger, growing from a smooth small ball to a lumpy thing hanging off of her that was becoming damn near the size of her body. She still seemed to get around with no difficulty, and it wasn't causing her pain, so we just waited (and no, before you say anything, I didn't take her to the vet...I love my rats, but I don't have the spare cash for a vet visit for a rat). We had been talking about just letting her go, but since she wasn't getting ill or anything, we kept waiting...Mostly, I just didn't want to deal with a dead animal. She was sneezing a lot this morning, but I didn't think much of it. She was still moving when I went out for my daily bike ride. When I got back, she was shivering, so I took her out of the cage. She lasted about another 5 minutes.
Damn.
