When it rains, it comes a hurricane...

Today has been one for the books. It was literally one thing after the other today. What is it about March? Why is this such a cursed month for us? Remember last March, we lost David and had several other things go wrong as well.

Today started horribly. I woke up to Chelsea lying on the cage floor, dying. She was on her side, laboring and just... dying. I wrapped her up in a towel so that I could hold her, but that made her very uneasy and nervous -- she even tried to jump out of the towel. I just laid her back down in her cage with the towel under and around her.

Today is also the day we were having Melissa put down. Her inoperable mammary tumors are just too big anymore, she can barely walk. The decision to have Chelsea put down as well was an easy one. Thank God my aunt took them for us, I don't know what we would have done if she wouldn't have. I know it's cowardly, but I just can't face it.

After we picked the puppies up at the vet, we got our two joeys neutered, Neville and Evan. I was a nervous wreck, for obvious reasons, so that made the neuters even worse for me. It didn't help that Evan was scared to death and overly grooming himself. I just knew he was going to tear something lose. It took him over an hour to finally stop and sleep.

When we got home, we fed the gliders and were taking the dishes in the glider room when LaVaughn heard a joey crying. We have 4 on the way, but NONE are ready to be OOP yet, so you can imagine my surprise. LaVaughn looked up at Chloe and Boone's cage and saw their tiny little leu boy clinging to the cage bars, crying. She quickly grabbed him and warmed him up in her hands.

I immediately noticed how skinny he looked, so I got our wonky gram scale out and weighed him. He weighed in at a jaw dropping 8 grams! It didn't take us long to make the decision to put Chloe in a cage by herself and monitor how she was doing with him and how well he was eating. It'll also give us the opportunity to feed her some extra protein for a few days.

This joey just doesn't look good. He's so tiny and sickly looking.

On top of all this, we're puppy sitting our aunt's puppies. They need to be watched closely overnight because of their incision. Max is being terrible and trying to nip at himself, so they really can't be left alone.

At the end of the day, I'm left with shattered nerves, a terrible headache, and a terrible loss in my heart. I just want the day to be over so I can put some of this crap behind me.

-Megan

Just look at how depressed she is.

I can't even imagine.

Not that it matters, but here's some of the awesome fruit we got for the gliders.

Savoy Truffle...

I don't really feel like blogging today, but I'm going to. Things are still really sensitive when it comes to Sally. I almost made it through an entire day yesterday without crying, but I knew it was inevitable. It's still so hard to believe she's gone. Her sister, Emilie, is taking it really hard. I know you all probably think I'm crazy, but it's true. She's just lying around and looks lost. Melissa and Chelsea are both consoling her, or so it seems. They lay their heads on her and just stay close.

It's extremely hard on me to be without Sally, but imagine those 3. They've spent their entire lives with her, every day since birth basically. I can't imagine what they feel and it breaks my heart that I can't ease their pain and suffering.

Speaking of suffering, poor Pip is having tooth issues again. He's lost a significant amount of weight and can't eat well at all. His teeth are extremely sensitive to cold foods -- we've all been there before. We put him in a cage by himself for a couple days to see just how much he's eating. The first day of giving him his regular food was a big eye opener -- he didn't eat much at all! The next day I cut his food up extremely small in hopes of him being able to eat it easier. After doing that and cleaning his teeth every other day, he finally started to eat a LOT! Like almost everything.

He still needed to be checked by the vet to make sure everything was okay. Since he's been drooling a lot lately and Sadie's fur has been greasy, we decided to just get fecals while we were there as well. Luckily everything is doing well. She acknowledged that he was having some teeth issues and said that there's a good chance there's irritation that may be causing an underlying infection, so she put him on antibiotics and sent us on our way.

If this doesn't help, we'll take him back for an ex-ray and maybe a blood smear.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Some pictures of the drive home. These are of Saint Francois river on C highway:

Just a sample of how cold it's been.

I like this one.

Now for the DELICIOUS cake that LaVaghn made. It's an Almond Joy cake and yes, it's just as delicious as it looks:

Here's our fancy Almond Joy cake.

I think it turned out quite pretty.

I like this picture. I think it turned out quite nice. Cake photography has never been my thing, though.

Welcome to the world of Superbowl...

I'm sure at least 65% of the population is watching the Superbowl today, which is to be expected. I asked off for this day, mainly because I didn't want to deal with the Superbowl crowd at work -- I honestly did have intentions of watching the game, but decided against it.

Instead of doing that, I took joey pictures! It was cold, damp, and cloudy outside, so outdoor pictures were a no. Instead, I moved their shoot to the bathroom. It worked out so well the last time I did that, but they were smaller and it was sunny, not dim and gloomy. That light that was cast through the window was not in my favor, so these pictures didn't quite turn out like I wanted them to.

This is what I deal with when we have joeys in the winter months.

After that, I cleaned the rat cage. I haven't been cleaning it as often as I normally would, mainly because I don't like upsetting the girls and/or moving them around much. Sally is still in bad shape, she's nearing the end I believe. Melissa's tumor is huge and I'm completely irate about it. It's NOT fair that rats have to go through what they go through.

I do don't want to get on that subject. It doesn't take much to trigger a crying outburst.

In other news, I'm still doing well with my Project 365 (knock wood). I've taken all the 365 pictures with my camera -- which is great, cause even if nothing it going that day, I still manage to get a decent picture. Well Friday rolled around and there I sat, 30 minutes into Saturday morning and it hit me... I didn't take a picture Friday! I flew into panic mode and frantically started looking through the camera for even the smallest picture I could have taken, but no.

It's LaVaughn's fault, I had to take her to the doctor yesterday and got completely sidetracked due to the paranoia of potentially getting sick from all the sickly people in the office. Luckily, thanks to the every popular "selfie" phenom, I managed to take a picture on my phone... of myself. NOT looking forward to that being my Day 31, but what can you do?

I'm going to get back to relaxing the rest of the night. I have to get up at 9 AM (shutter) tomorrow. Yeah, not looking forward to that wake-up call, but it's for my aunt and that makes it okay.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Here are the LONG overdue joey pictures...

Neville

Luna

Evan

Evie

And now some pictures from Saturday:

Grumpy looking Una.

Yes, this is me sporting LaVaughn's glasses.