The last two weeks Ignatz wound swelling went slowly down like expected, and it seemed all was okay, though he wasn't very active. Then yesterday evening I noticed that it looked more swollen again and seemed come back (why always on weekends, why?). He's still eating and doesn't seem to be in pain, so I decided against bringing him to the vet during the weekend emergency hours, because from my previous experience with this I don't think there can be done much. I mean, either the bleeding is back even after two weeks of healing and they certainly couldn't do any heroic interventions for that the last two times I brought him for this beyond hoping for the best, or the tumor itself is somehow back and growing fast or something, and then nothing could be done either.

So considering that Ignatz doesn't seem to be suffering right now, I decided to wait until Monday for my vet's regular opening hours -- which admittedly is also more convenient, less crowded, and much cheaper because of the lack of the weekend emergency fee. I had already planned to bring him Monday anyway, because the rattling breathing sounds from his chronic myco lung infection are also back, and though it by now has been already treated with four different antibiotic courses in the past, I thought that maybe there could be still some other they can try this time. Though I don't know how that will be with his wound now being worse on top of everything.

So anyway, it doesn't look good for the little guy, but I'm sort of resigned and numb about this by now.

Admittedly I haven't even bothered to vote this year because that advisory board was such a farce the last time around, but wasn't there supposed to be some kind of result by now? I looked at the the election community but don't see any result announcement? Are they now not showing anything even before the term starts? I didn't think the visibility and user communications of the thing could possibly get any worse than last year, but as usual LJ is full of surprises.

ETA: Not long after I wondered about this, they finally made an announcement in the news comm.

I'm beginning to feel oddly understanding about the stupid "sex kitten" poses female characters are so often stuck with on covers and such. It's not that I'm getting fond of the sexism, but it is frelling hard to come up with engaging poses when you just want to draw some character, portrait-like I mean rather than some scene with an inherent action. And while the message isn't great, at least the stripper body language says something rather than having the character stand around dumbly, looking very boring.

How do people who are good at portraits figure out how to arrange the character? I totally fail at this. My attempts always look stiff or stupid or both.

Today Ignatz got the stitches taken out. The wound is still very swollen from the previous bleeding, but I just hope he's healing beneath as well. The vet said the blood should be reabsorbed over the next two or three weeks, so I guess it'll look awful for a while yet.

I've also taken the divider out of the cage so he's together with Emil again. That thankfully went without any scuffling that might have happened because he still smells of the vet or the separation of the last ten days. Emil just climbed over Ignatz a few times, peed on him and then there was some grooming, so all things considered a fairly friendly welcome back so far. Which is good because of course Ignatz is still recovering. I mean, they haven't fought much since they were out of their rowdy young adult days, and even then never so serious that there were any bleeding wounds or anything, but still, you never know.

Anyway, they now have each other for company and cuddling again, and Emil the full run of the cage, so I hope he'll be less frustrated, and both happier than isolated from each other.

Today I came across the website of this really cool artist, Alex CF, who creates fake specimen display cases with horror and fantasy animals and such, in the style you might find in old museums or cabinets of curiosities. The website describes it as "cryptozoological scientific art". Sometimes it is whole sets, with documents, skeletons, preserved specimens, tools and all sorts of stuff and they come with short stories of a sort explaining the fictional background. I especially liked Cthulhu Specimen Box, The Lycanthropy research of Edward Harrell, Severed “Draco Alatus” Head and Infant stillborn Draco Alatus, Expedition to the Plateau - Lost World Exploration Case and Experiments in extra dimensions; The Cheshire cat, but really you should browse the whole site. (Obviously due to the nature of the art the displays are slightly gory.) I only wish the photos of the works were in a higher resolution, because you can't make out all the awesome detail and read the text in the documents on the site.

I'm sorry that this journal is all rat health minutiae all the time lately, but it's what's on my mind the last days. I guess at least I'm doing my part to dispel any illusions anyone might still have harbored that small rodents were uncomplicated, low maintenance pets, or not regularly causing you hundreds of Euro in accumulating vet costs.

Previously in this journal: Monday afternoon I last brought Ignatz to the vet and what I thought was some kind of swelling turned out to have been bleeding inside the wound. The vet thought the bleeding must have stopped (or Ignatz would have been dead) and drained off a disturbing amount of blood. I hoped all would be well.

Unfortunately the swelling returned, though at first I wasn't sure (there was still some after the vet removed blood from the wound), but I wasn't home much of yesterday and with a few hours difference it was clear that he had been bleeding again. I didn't manage to get him to the vet yesterday, but it really alarmed me. Such a small animal can only afford to loose so much blood after all, keeping in mind that this is like a plum-sized protrusion, much larger than the original tumor.

So of course this morning I brought him to the vet yet again, and well, the vet confirmed that it had been bleeding again, but also thought that the pressure from the blood against the skin would actually stop the bleeding inside, and it could heal, whereas if he were to drain blood again to relieve the pressure, it would just bleed again, causing Ignatz to loose yet more blood. So the vet didn't actually do anything.

On the one hand this is somewhat reassuring, in that the wound still might heal and the vet doesn't think my rat is slowly bleeding to death, on the other hand it is really kind of awful that there isn't some sort of heroic intervention or anything that could just fix this. But I guess you can't really help small animals as much as even cats or dogs, who at least can get IVs and stuff. And I guess fixing anything inside the wound would require an operation as bad and taxing as the first one, with him just bleeding out more.

On the hopeful side Ignatz is still eating, and today he does seem a bit more lively and attentive than yesterday, I hope because the blood loss slowed or stopped. It's a good thing of course that he sleeps and rests as he's supposed to, with "lively" I mean more things like whether or not he perks up when I'm near the cage and looks for contact rather than being lethargic.

At least he still seems determined to hang in there and to get better, which I hope will count for something. In any case I got a tube with high calorie nutrition paste at the vet's that is intended to help cats and dogs recover after surgery and such, but rats also like the foul smelling stuff (it's some kind of disgusting fatty fish oil mixed with sugary corn syrup and some other stuff and enriched with vitamins and minerals).

It's not like I can do anything else for him, besides offering him the most tasty foods and crossing my fingers.

Because the wound area has been really swollen over the weekend I brought Ignatz in to the vet again this afternoon. I didn't think it was an emergency because he was eating and behaving mostly okay. Turns out it wasn't swelling but the wound had bled internally. So the vet drew a disturbingly huge amount of blood from the wound in a syringe. (It was at least a full human size syringe, and that from a rat!) The vet said however that the bleeding itself must have stopped already, otherwise Ignatz wouldn't still be alive. I hope he's right about the bleeding, and that Ignatz will now heal okay. In any case I suspect Ignatz is now more comfortable without all that blood in the wound pressing on things, though once we got home he just hid in his house. But then I suppose I would feel really crappy with such blood loss too. If you have any good health vibes to spare, Ignatz could certainly use them.

Everyone and their pet tribble did this, so of course I filled out the Star Trek Reboot Meme too.

( large image behind the cut )

Ignatz is doing better. He's started to venture out of his house more often, picked different sleeping spots sometimes and has been coming out to greet me when I'm near the cage doors, so he's not that lethargic anymore. He's really annoyed with the antibiotics though, and unfortunately spit some of the medicine out. I had a bit more than needed in the needle-less syringe I shoved into his mouth (the vet said I shouldn't give it mixed into food), so I hope I got something like a dose into him.

Meanwhile Emil is not pleased at all with the current state of affairs either, because parts of his cage are closed to him, and things are much more boring too, what with no brother to snuggle and scuffle with.

I tried to take photos of Ignatz' throat, but I he didn't really cooperate with me, so I only have a picture that shows one side of his shaved throat and the fetching silver glitter stuff they covered him in (some sort of disinfectant I assume), and a blurry one taken through the cage door as he was drinking.

( post surgery photos of Ignatz )

Seven Moments, by Barrowjane. Gen. (ca. 1,300 words)
Sandman/Star Trek: Reboot
There's just something about other characters meeting the Endless that I really enjoy, and this example of the genre is no exception.

Down The Rabbit Hole, by Bluflamingo. Slash, Colby/Lorne, Colby/Daniel. (ca. 10,000 words)
Numb3rs/Stargate: Atlantis/Stargate: SG-1
I like how this handles the relationships, the complications that come with dating outside of your secret alien conspiracy, and the way the SGC happens to tangle with the FBI here works for me too.

People Who Repair Quantums, or Five Planets The Enterprise Never Visited, by Ignipes. Gen. (ca. 2,800 words)
Star Trek: Reboot/Alien/Discworld/Doctor Who/Dune/Star Wars
I really enjoyed the crossovers for which I was familiar with the sources, also, while I don't know Discworld, the bit where Spock reacts to the flat disc and giant turtle and so on in space was awesome.

Bright White Light, by lilacsigil. Gen. (ca. 35,000 words)
Supernatural/X-Files
This is set during the X-Files episode "Fallen Angel", which I barely remembered, but the story still worked for me. We get the events of the episode but seen from the perspective (and worldview) of young Sam and Dean. I thought it was really cool how one side believes it's all aliens, and the other it's all supernatural and I was wondering what was really going on. And I liked Sam and Dean adventuring.

Exiles, by nwhepcat. Gen, Oz, Sam. WIP
The premise here is that Sam runs into Oz during Mystery Spot. I found this via Cofax and am really enjoying it so far. The parts are all quite short, but it is updated very often.

a fucking space opera (or Six Characters Who Didn't Board the USS Enterprise), by Oxoniensis. Gen. (3,169 words)
Star Trek: Reboot/Harry Potter/Merlin/Stargate Atlantis/Supernatural/Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
In the best tradition of wacky crossovers, this was simply a lot of fun.

Thanks for all your good wishes, they helped a lot.

Ignatz got through the operation and is now back home. The vet was right and it turned out to be a tumor, which of course wasn't what I had hoped for, not just because tumors may likely come back, but because it was much harder to operate, especially as according to the vet the tumor was very connected to the surrounding tissue so the operation was very bloody. Ignatz still seems quite lethargic and unwell, which I guess makes sense after loosing blood. He also looks rather pitiful because of the shaved fur around his throat, and the rest of his coat looks bedraggled as if he hasn't bothered to groom yet.

But the vet said he woke from the anesthesia okay, and he that he has eaten some (though I could see that the rodent food mix they had wasn't the kind he likes), and now that he's home I've seen him eat some banana before retreating into his house as well. The vet also told me that he actually tried to escape from the box this afternoon. They had to keep him in his smallish transport box I brought him in, because they didn't have room on their station in one of their regular cages, and I didn't know he learned how to open it (he never managed with me nearby) but he apparently succeeded there and they had to tape it shut on top of the latch. So I take that as a good sign of initiative and recovery, that he tried to stage jailbreaks.

I still have to keep him separate from Emil, so that the stitches on his throat are left alone and he can recover, because obviously another rat could get easier at them, as Ignatz can only reach them with his paws, not gnaw on them with teeth, though the vet said he was fairly good with them so far, and hasn't disturbed the wound. And of course he smells very strange much more so than after a regular vet visit, so while my two usually don't tussle much any more, Emil might react to that as well, and I've divided their cage for now.

This is one of the times I'm really glad I spend quite a bit of money on a sensible rat cage, because I didn't have to set up a separate, unfamiliar recovery cage, but could just put in a premade divider to block some of their levels from each other, and he can recover in a familiar smelling place, and Emil just has the inconvenience that the upper area will be blocked to him, but remains in the cage he knows as well.

I have to bring Ignatz in again tomorrow for a wound check, but for now he's curled up in his house and as okay as can be expected I guess, after after anesthesia, removal of a large tumor, and loosing quite a bit of blood. But I hope he'll recover, and that having had this operation will turn out the right choice that will buy him the most time and best quality of life possible.

ETA: Emil just discovered that I cut off much of his cage from him and seems very cross about that. He now checked whether the unwanted divider was still there no less than three time in the last ten minutes: Going up the stairs where normally there is a hole and pushing his nose against the metal wire mesh now blocking his access to the upstairs levels (he got the lower levels so he can get outside easily, whereas Ignatz for obvious reasons doesn't feel like playing so he got upstairs).

I'm just back from dropping my poor rat Ignatz off with the vet, and he'll be operated on in a couple of hours, sometime around noon, so if any of you can spare him some good wishes, he could really use them. He's fairly old for a rat and the tumor/abscess/growth/whatever it'll turn out to be is largish (though it didn't grow much since last week) and in a tricky spot being right on his vulnerable throat (or maybe his thyroid if it's a tumor). They'll call me around four in the afternoon to tell me how it went, and if all goes well I can bring him back home late this afternoon. Meanwhile Emil is still sleeping and hasn't noticed yet that I didn't bring his brother with me when I came back. I really hope all will go well. *is a nervous wreck*

So I brought Ignatz in to my vet during their emergency hours today, and even though I showed up right after they opened I had to wait almost two hours to be seen. Then I had the bad luck that on the emergency roster wasn't one of the practice's vets of whom I know they are experienced with rats, but someone unfamiliar. Anyway, after feeling that cherry-sized bulge the vet told me she thought it might be a tumor rather an abscess because it is right where the thyroid gland is, and also didn't feel warm to her, even though I stressed how I'm sure it just appeared yesterday rather than growing. She said something of tumors sometimes first growing inward and then suddenly bulging outward -- it sounded dubious to me, but it's not like I'm an expert.

In any case, she said whether tumor of abscess, the placement of the thing was tricky because so many vital nerves, blood vessels and such were there, so it was more problematic to open and remove, and as Ignatz is still breathing and eating okay it's not an emergency, and they can't do that kind of thing on the weekend so I'd need to make an appointment for a regular operation. The earliest date I could get for one wasn't until Thursday (!), which I find quite worrying, I mean that is almost a week, so when the assistant told me that I even had her talk to the doctor again, whether it wasn't dangerous to wait this long to do anything, but she didn't seem to think so.

I really hope she's right. It's not like I can do anything further, though I have no idea why they couldn't at least, like biopsy the thing by sticking a needle in to see whether pus comes out or not or something, without it being a big risk, but apparently that wouldn't be a good idea. I guess I'll just have to wait and hope for the best until Thursday.

I wonder whether these people who claim pets are good for your health ever take into account the times when you're a stressed, nervous wreck because something is unexpectedly wrong with them. I think I rather need something like a tribble, only sterile or neutered/spayed or whatever people do to keep pet tribbles responsibly without causing ecological disasters. It would be small enough for my place, furry and calming, and most importantly they seem quite resilient, unless you poison them.

I just let my rats out this evening and noticed a huge growth/bulge/something (about cherry-sized!) on the underside of Ignatz' throat. I'm fairly sure it wasn't there (or not nearly as large) yesterday, because I like to scritch him under his chin and would have felt it just like I did today. I don't see/feel any wounds, but I guess it still could be an abscess? I see an emergency vet trip coming tomorrow morning. I wish I had noticed it early this afternoon, then I could have gone the regular vet hours, which wouldn't have cost the extra emergency charge, and spared me a night of worry about something horrible happening to him with this. He seems okay, is eating and running around as well as usual (he is elderly after all), so that is something, but still, there is a cherry sized something on his throat. I just hope it won't impact his breathing and swallowing if this worsens.

...how to explain this, but after reading kass' story Zygote, I felt compelled to draw a quick comment doodle for it. (John/Rodney in an SGA/Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex* (but were afraid to ask) fusion)

I've been thinking about the ST:AOS timeline. Presumably it is like the TOS reality until the Kelvin is destroyed by Nero. But when I thought about that, how do the timetravel events work that have various future crews (from the regular timeline) interact with the past pre-split? Like how did the events of Star Trek: First Contact happen in the AOS reality? I mean, which version of the future characters have now ended up in the past? Or am I approaching this wrong? This makes my head hurt.

Here's my finished Uhura icon. Now I only need some idea how I could make a Kirk!RatCreature recognizable...

( larger pencils and inks behind the cut )

So, I have been sucked into the the ST:AOS fandom, and I feel the need for having more Star Trek icons. I've had my Spock icon for a long time, and also have a Borg which, while not all that suitable for the TOS/AOS time period, aptly describes being assimilated into a new fandom. But now I'm considering to make an Uhura icon.

The snag I've run into is that I'm not sure which hairstyle I should choose. For rather obvious reason with my icon theme "resemblance" for a character depends a lot on things like associated symbols, tools, clothes and hairstyle. While I intend to use it for the new movie fandom, I somehow feel that TOS Uhura's hairstyle would be more recognizable to represent the character. So what do you think?

Poll #1411642 iconic hairstyles
This poll is closed.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which hairstyle should I pick for an Uhura!RatCreature icon?

yahtzee63 just posted the last part of her awesome ST:AOS story Break (Spock/Uhura, ca. 26,000 words), which tells the story of Spock and Uhura's relationship from their first meeting to the end of the movie. You probably have all already read this or bookmarked it for reading anyway, but if not you really should.