Broken...

The past few days have been some of the worst that I can remember. It all started Friday night when we heard fighting coming from Cas and Violet's cage. Of course, I ran in and grabbed the pouch out -- I'm always paranoid the joeys are being hurt. My inkling was right. What I saw -- at least what I think I saw -- was Cas on top of David, biting his face.

My mind went into shock. I started shaking and grabbing David out of the pouch. I ran in the room LaVaughn was in and handed him to her. After that, I put Cas in a cage by himself.

I could barely talk, my knees were shaking, and I was nearly in tears. All I could see was a blood soaked face. After we calmed down some, we saw that he had two bite marks on his face, one right above his nose and then one on the left side of his nostril. We held him for an hour, contemplating what to do with him. We didn't know if Violet was rejecting him or if it was all Cas -- or just an all around accident in general.

We decided to let her sniff him, which she did without any issues. We laid him in the pouch with her where she proceeded to clean him and clean off his face some. We tried to get him to nurse the rest of the night, which he didn't. But, his nose was so swollen, I can imagine that wouldn't be pleasant. I ended up mixing up some milk replacer and trying to feed him like that. He barely acknowledged it. We ended up putting him in with his mom and put them both back in the cage around 5 AM.

He was also starting to have some trouble breathing. His nose was so swollen that he was having to breath out of his mouth from time to time.

The next day, which was Saturday, I got up to get ready for work. I just knew in my mind that he would be dead. To my surprise, he wasn't. I woke LaVaughn up and told her that he was still with us so she would know to try and feed him.

Lets fast forward to Saturday evening, when I got a message from LaVaughn saying that he ate, and ate well! He has also been breathing fine out of his now, which was a huge relief. She fed him off and on all day Saturday. When I got home around Midnight, he ate some more. He didn't really eat well the rest of the night, though.  Violet was still being a good mama and cleaning him for us and keeping him warm.

Around 4:30 Sunday morning, we decided to go to bed. He hadn't ate much by then, but we just figured he was pretty full still.

Now, lets fast forward to noon on Sunday, which was yesterday. I woke up and went in the living room where I found LaVaughn, sitting on the couch and looking like she had been through the ringer. That's when she proceeded to tell me that he wasn't breathing well and she had been up with him since 5:30. She wasn't lying, his health took a turn for the worst.

I took him from her so she could go get some sleep.

This is where it's going to get hard for me to talk about. I held him in my hand from noon up until he took his last breath at 7:08 PM. I literally cried non-stop from 5 up until 8. I have never, in my entire life, witnessed something like that. Something so pitiful and helpless, suffering.

My heart is broken. I feel like I lost a family member. I held him in my hands for a few minutes, sobbing over his tiny corpse. I prayed that he would make it and still be breathing, but then there was part of me that was relieved that his suffering was over.

It's just been an all around shitty weekend. If I had alcohol handy, I probably wouldn't be awake right now. And call me crazy for being so attached to something that I had only known for a few days, I don't care. My animals are my life, even ones that I've just met.

Everything makes me think of him. I'll see a tissue that I've missed, one that I've used to wipe his little nose off with. Or like the ashtray that I'm staring at now, the one I kept water in yesterday when I needed to wet a piece of tissue to use on him. Milla just made a squeaking noise that sounded like one of the sounds he made in his last few hours when he would struggle to breath. It's an endless nightmare right now, it takes nothing to send me into tears. I have to stop, my head can't take more crying today.

We're going to bury him under a maple tree, next to a bleeding heart bush. It seems fitting. I'm not sure that I'm ready to put his tiny little body into the ground, where it's cold and lonely, but I know I can't hold on forever.

Even though this is going to kill me, I'm going to add his last pictures to this blog.

-Megan

These were taken late Thursday night/early Friday morning...

Pretty little Neal:

Sweet little David:

These were taken just a few hours before everything happened:

Such gorgeous little boys.

And I know these aren't pleasant, but these were taken early Saturday morning:

See how bad his poor little nose was?

He also had an air pocket come up on top of his head.

RIP my sweet little man. Your life was short lived, but your memory will last forever...