No End to the Anguish

I began cleaning The Piggals home this morning and Fancy squealed when Hubs picked her up to put her on the floor to play while I cleaned.  He knows how to scoop them up the right way and she doesn't mind being held at all so it was quite unusual and alarming for her to do that.  He handed her to me so I could check her out and her lady-parts were bleeding.  I shrugged it off for a moment thinking she must have started menses, but then I recalled having several female piggies before and they never menstruated, so I was a bit unnerved.  I finished cleaning their pen and carefully placed her back inside noting that there were a few drops of blood where she was sitting.  Then there was slightly bloody urine where she wee'd in her pen on the fresh bedding. There's been no more bleeding today and other than this momentary incident, she was not showing any signs that something was not well...although that's pretty typical of guinea pigs.  They don't show weakness until it's almost too late to treat them.  I'm always on the look out for warning signs.  I got online and read that a bloody discharge could be symptomatic of a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) or Bladder stones among other, more serious things, like cysts and cancer.

Fancy watching Lisa Vanderpump on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills with me the other day

Hubs made an appointment for the vet and we weighed her and I began keeping a notebook with her daily weight and her "input" and "output".  We've just gotten over our second annual bout of undiagnosed maladies with our cat and just lost our beloved 10 yr old bunny a few weeks ago, the same week we adopted the 'pigs.

I am so mentally exhausted from worrying about the pets' health.  Ani has had the same mystery illness two years in a row at exactly the same time of year and it never occurred until we moved here to the foothills of the Shenandoah.  He was never diagnosed with anything but it did subside after about a week.  I was so scared both times that we were going to lose him.  He is always so healthy but he still hasn't bounced back.  He lost so much weight, this last time particularly, and he just isn't gaining it back.  It makes me think of how we almost lost him every time I pet him or cuddle him and I feel his bones.  I don't know if I should be disappointed with the vet, but I feel so sad that I can't do anything more to help him.

I also have worries about the money it has taken to get our pets treated since we moved here.  I feel like we had such a great vet (where I even interned in high school), but we never needed him for anything but regular checkups.  Now we are here, with a new vet that we don't know, and everything seems to be going wrong.  We lost our bun after spending so much money to help her.  The night before she died, my husband had picked up new rounds of meds for her that we never even used...hundreds of dollars that I feel were a waste.  I wish she could have been spared the pain and terror of that last week of her life.  I hope my end isn't as tragic.  I also worry for the pain pets have to go through that is probably mostly unexpressed because it is in their nature to hide pain (and weakness).  We had been saving for a downpayment on a house so we happened to have some money in the bank to cover these medical expenses, but now all that money is gone and not one pet has been healed yet.  I would give all my money for my pets to be healthy and happy, but to give it all and know they are not, hurts so much.

Hubs and I haven't even had health insurance for ourselves in over a decade.  We haven't been to a doctor or a dentist in that time even though it has been needed.  We take care of our "babies" first and until we moved here they haven't had any major medical expenses.   Every time I feel like I've gotten up from a heavy punch, I get knocked down again. We really need to buy a house and get health insurance so that we can start a family before we are forty, but at this rate, it's not going to happen and I'm kinda terrified of where our life is heading.