Tumors

 My rat boys are about a year and a half (they will turn two years in February, but I'm  not good at precise calculations, so we'll say a year and one half).

I haven't gotten any good group shots since they were wee little ratlings. Looking above, its hard to tell who is who, really.

Well, with age comes complications. This is true for most things in life.

While complications could simply mean things like "more responsibility" in the human world, typically in the critter world it doesn't translate the same way.

A couple months ago, I found a tumor underneath Link's right arm. I think it's actually attached to his chest.


Today, I found a small spot on Darcy's chest. At first I thought it was a nipple, but realized quickly it was in the wrong place for that.

The average lifespan of a rat is anywhere from 3-5 years. That's a huge difference in rat years!

And sometimes it doesn't matter how well you treat them or care for them. At some point in their small and tight lifespan, they are going to be more likely to get a tumor. Rats and tumors go hand-in-hand, it seems. It is not uncommon for one's pet rat to get a tumor.

While not all tumors are "bad" (there are rats who will have benign tumors) it does ultimately suck. And what really sucks is that you can't always afford to get it removed, whether its benign or not.

A friend of mine in the Vet degree at UGA once took a look at my sister's rats a few years ago. They were growing tumors and Audrey was worried about them. What should she do? Michelle said that you could go to the UGA vet school and get them lopped off for about $100. While $100 isn't too bad, it's still money that you don't always have right away.

And I know some people say if you can't afford the vet bills you shouldn't even "own" a pet (I put "own" in quotations because I don't like saying I "own" my pets; mothers don't describe "owning" their children). I don't really want to get into that whole debate.

This post is mostly about how sad I am that at this moment in my life, I can't get rid of these tiny little things growing out of my children's chests. It doesn't bother them and it may never bother them. I've seen tumors go bad and I've seen tumors have zero effect on the lifestyle of the rat. Either way, it sucks. They're getting older and that's hard to accept.