Yum Yum Rat

I met a friend in 10th grade gym class who was as much of an animal lover as I, and it turned out she was a rat-a-holic as well. Yum Yum was the rat's name, and my friend told me she was a black hooded who was very sweet, but unfortunately didn't get held much because my friend was allergic. Later that school year we were in the same lunch period, and Yum Yum came up in our conversations more than once. My friend once said, jokingly, "I'm going to give you Yum Yum for your birthday!" My birthday is in the summer, so I wasn't sweating it. But then we got more serious. My friend's dad wanted to get rid of Yum Yum, and I was the only other rat lover she knew. So we decided to go for it. Together we devised a seemingly perfect plan: a couple days before my birthday she would drop Yum Yum off at my house, and my parents wouldn't be able to do anything about it!

The big day crept closer, and I wound up telling my parents what I was planning. (They weren't too thrilled, but I was just stuck with a couple extra chores.) It was about 3 days before the drop-off date, and I called my friend to check on what time she would be here. Unfortunately she said Yum Yum had gotten pretty sick, and she didn't want to stick me with a sick rat for a gift. We compromised: I had already made a vet appointment for a couple of my rats, so we decided to take Yum Yum (and my friend) along. It was the first time I had met this rat, but the first thought that entered my mind was "I have NEVER seen anything like this!"

I'll try my best to describe Yum Yum's symptoms. She didn't seem to be able to balance, and therefore would just drag along on one side of her body. Her right eye seemed kind of sunk in, whereas the left one was practically poping out of her head. Yum Yum seemed to be dizzy, and she couldn't balance. This proved to be a bigger problem than first thought because she couldn't sit back on her hind legs to eat, drink, or even clean herself.

The vet gave us some medicine, and I took Yum Yum home that day instead our planned date. The medicine didn't work; Yum Yum was as dizzy as ever, so the day before I left for a week of camp we brought Yum back to the vet- this time for a shot of steroids. The impact was startling! She immediately got her balance back and began drinking and eating on her own. Prior to that I had been giving her water in an eyedropper, and I'd put mushy foods on the floor of her cage so she could lick it up. But over the week I was gone, she put on some weight and began to act like a normal rat! Right around the time I got home, though, the steroids wore off and Yum Yum was her regular dizzy self.

Back to the vet! But this time, however, an online rat friend had recommended oral prednisone, and our vet decided that sounded as good as anything, so we put Yum Yum on that. This was a long-term medicine, to be given twice daily until it ran out, but it was to last about a month. The medicine had the same effect as the steroids! She got her equilibrium back and was drinking, eating and cleaning herself. I left soon after that for New York for a couple days, but my mom gave her medicine and Yum continued to improve. When I returned I put Yum Yum and Sweetie together in Sweetie's half of the monster. They had more than enough room, but Sweetie didn't take to Yum Yum so well. The girls slept on opposite sides of the cage, and Sweetie kept trying to steal Yum Yum's yogurt drops. I hoped their relationship would grow with time, so I kept them together and continued with Yum's medicine.

A few weeks later we took a weekend trip up north to Duluth, MN, and when we returned Yum Yum began her downhill slide again. Although she was still on her medicine, her old symptoms returned. I took her off the medicine and began giving her water in an eyedropper and feeding her mushy foods. Unfortunately we had planned ANOTHER trip for the following weekend, this time to Milwaukee. I knew that Yum Yum would never make it through that weekend alone, so I left her in the care of another friend of mine who is almost constantly administering medicine to one animal or another - whether it be hamsters or horses. I knew Yum Yum would be getting the best care possible.

When we returned and picked Yum Yum up, my heart sank. She was so thin I felt like I should be able to see through her, and she wouldn't move at all. Her eyes were almost covered in a gooey red mucus, and any attempts to give her water failed. She was completely unresponsive to outside stimulus, and the water would dribble out of her mouth and down my shirt. It was none the fault of my friend's- she told me that about halfway through the week she had been tempted to give Yum Yum a small dose of horse tranquilizers, which would be more than enough to end Yum Yum's suffering. The thought that my friend had waited so I'd be able to say good bye to my rat made me smile at her thoughtfulness, but made me want to cry at the thought that Yum Yum had deteriorated so much. On the drive home my sister held Yum Yum while I drove, but not once did I look over at either one of them.

It was much later that evening, actually very early the next morning. I couldn't sleep, so I picked Yum Yum up and began signing online. I had decided that if she lived through the night I would most have her put to sleep the next day, because there was no way Yum Yum would pull through this episode as she had with the last. At that moment Yum began gasping, as though there was something in her throat. Through the next couple of minutes, I surprised myself by staying calm and thinking things through instead of becoming very emotional. I ran to my bedroom and got a syringe I had been using to give her water and tried to suck any lung fluid out of her air passage, because a few weeks earlier she had done this exact same thing, and after hacking up some pretty gross stuff she seemed to feel better. I know that's tough for rats, because their body can't throw up or burp. A few moments later Yum Yum stopped gasping, but while I held her I realized she wasn't breathing at all. I ran upstairs to wake my mom, like I always do when a rat is in trouble. I felt something pulsing so fast it felt like a hummingbird's wings, and I realized it was her heart. I hadn't even reached my mom's bedroom door when that pulsing stopped, and Yum Yum was still.

I buried Yum under a walnut tree in our backyard, alongside Hamlet the albino male rat and Taco, a male hamster. I was sad but not surprised at what had happened, and I was very glad I was able to hold Yum Yum while she died, so she knew she wasn't alone. Now Yum Yum is chillin' with Tempelton, Hamlet, Sweetie, Kiki and all the others on the Rainbow Bridge, and I know that no matter where she is, she's happy.

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