A Crisis and the Dentist

A Post in Two Acts

ZoePig has a gaping head wound. (which, thankfully, you can't see in this picture) I'm not quite sure what happened to her, but Scott and I were absolutely heart-broken last night when I found it.

She's been squeaking a lot recently, shaking her head and scratching, so I did a bunch of internet research. It seems she may have ear mites (though who knows how that would've happened?) or an ear infection. The short-term cure was to apply a little mineral oil to her ears with a q-tip. Since we already had her out and in a secure death grip, it seemed a good time to clip her toenails as well. (not something that was covered in my original guinea pig primer... and she had grown curly old man toenails) And for the past few days, she hadn't been squeaking or scratching as much and we thought we had solved the problem.

Then last night as we were getting ready for bed, she started absolutely freaking out and when I went over to see what was going on, I saw this big spot (ok, "big" in this case equals slightly smaller than a dime) on the top of her head that was completely fur-less and all bloody. I don't know if she was scratching and one of her newly-trimmed nails was cut ragged and sharp, or if she banged it against the edge of her rainbow tunnel. We took her out and gave her a bath (her mantra for the event was "don't touch my head"), blow-dried her, and spent some quality time on the bathroom floor. When she went back to her cage, we gave her some carrots. She was eating and drinking normally, so we decided to call around to vets first thing this morning.

Note: guinea pigs are considered "exotics" and not seen by most vets. The one vet that was recommended by all of the other "small animal" vets in the area was in emergency surgery this morning and they were already rescheduling their clients who already had appointments.

So after a half dozen phone calls, I gave up. Ultimately, Scott took over phone duties and found a vet down on 50 who could see her tomorrow. Her head looks much better today. I really think that whatever she did had just happened when I noticed it. She's been quiet today, but still eating and drinking a lot. I think she's fine, but she obviously still needs to go to the doctor.

As for the dentist, he numbed up both sides of my mouth, which resulted in tons of fun saying tongue twisters (and having a Frosty for lunch because I was afraid to chew). He put a crown on my root canal tooth (#2 - upper right) and a temporary filling on the molar that's been throbbing for the past few days (#19 - lower left). If the filling stops the pain, he'll just do a regular filling. But it's close enough to the root that he wants to make sure I don't need a root canal. So I go back in two weeks to have fillings done on #18 and (hopefully) 19 (coincidentally, the same ones that Scott just had done) and also on #14. After that, just one more crown on a previously root canal-ed tooth and I'm done with my original treatment plan.

So in case you were wondering what I have planned for the next few weeks, Zoe's appointment tomorrow, then Scott has various dentist appointments and consultations this Wednesday and next Tuesday, then my appointment Feb 5, then he has two others on the 6th and 7th, and then I have jury duty on the 12th. I bet everyone on earth is jealous of the fun and excitement in store for me!!!