Still Here, by Izzy

I’m still here.

(Is it not cool how I stole a blog post title and made it my own (after Mom stole it first!))? Rats are pretty good at stealing shit and making it their own — just check out the Rat Property Laws if you don’t believe me.)

By the way, I can spell and write well (none of that LOLz  i cAnTspell 2cUtE sH1t — okay, that has its place, and it’s definitely fun, and cutesy… but think about it: rats are smart, and while I’m cuter than you’ll ever be, I’m not cutesy. So.). And yeah, I’m a rat, and we’re among the smartest of animals.

Ya know, I make fewer typos than Mom does, actually… which is kind of weird considering I don’t have opposable thumbs like she does.

(Oh, by the way, I’m writing this instead of Mom — she is superstitiously terrified that if she writes about me feeling okay, I will suddenly die or feel sick or both.)

Anyway, Mom thought I was gonna kick it the other night, as you know from her blog post. I kinda thought so, too. Was scary. Scared her pretty bad, too. I felt like crap (and not just for scaring her… I felt really bad for a while there). Then some meds or something took hold and that oogy head tilt went away (mostly — boy did that suck, I was so dizzy — and so sick of Mom singing “dizzy Miss Izzy” to me — she can’t sing to save her life or mine), and I’ve been eating hard food, climbing up and down ladders and ramps, going all over the room and scaring the poop out of Mom when she couldn’t find me (was fun), went up to the second level of the big cage and got in Baby and Molly’s faces (nice to get out of sick bay once in a while, though I do have to say I love the setup Mom’s made for me next to the big cage: soft, fuzzy, fleece blankies for the cage floor ((one level so if I’m feeling not myself I don’t have to traverse any ramps)) and cloud-like fleece blankies inside my igloo, and the soft,  green, fuzzy binky that I can cuddle up to — she got it for me at Petco — and a TP roll hanging from the cage ceiling so I can pull it in through the igloo window and tear it up into a nest when I’m feeling up to it…). Anwyay, where was I… Oh! Check this out, I took over their igloo totally (oh yeah right, somewhere at the beginning of this sentence I was talking about Eminent Domain over Baby and Molly, I stole their dog treat, check this out):

And the food! NOM.

Mommy actually skins my individual peas and corn and edamame and Lima beans so I don’t have to mess with the difficult outer parts (my teeth and jaws and hands don’t work as good as they used to). Oh, and I get fresh avocado chunks every night, which are very easy for me to chew, and really, really nutritious, and help keep my weight up. She also buys Ensure strawberry & creme flavor… NOM again. That stuff is SO good. She mixes it with my meds, gives it to me in a dish of strawberry soy yogurt… actually she gives it to me whenever I want it! *happiness* There’s a little bit of a good thing to be said for being poorly: you get ALL the good food you want ALL the time. Check this out:

(If you want to see what that’s really all about, look here, and check out the notes.)

Anyway, where was I… Well, I feel okay for now, most definitely okay enough to try to fight off the icky pink medicine the last few nights, that Dostinex stuff that Mommy keeps telling me is the only thing keeping me alive. ‘mscuuuze me, but I think my SELF is keeping me alive — I wanna be here! And then there’s Mom.

Mom. Well. She is Love. She’s keeping me alive with her love — if it weren’t for her, I don’t know where I’d be. Taking a dirt nap, probably. I have to admit, the twice-a-day meds thing was getting old a while ago, but I don’t complain too much now because only one med is really icky (the Baytril is quite delicious, my absolute fave), and best of all, at meds time each morning and evening, Mom picks me up, wraps me in my favorite soft towel, and cuddles me for a long time before she starts sticking sippy syringes of meds in my face. I like the cuddling. Mommy rubs her chin along the top of my head, along the back of my neck and down my back, over and over again.

Bliss.

Mom says she doesn’t know how long this improvement is going to last. What’s how long? I’ve been alive my whole life!

Thanks for listening.

~Izzy