Nessa - very ill 😞

[EastMidsGPs]

Friday noticed the girls were a bit itchy. Saturday treated them with mite stuff. Nessa had wet patch over one hip nothing more.
Sunday Ness had bitten hole in skin over hip, cleaned it, disinfected it and tried to it clean.
By breakfast Monday morning, huge lump had formed. Emergency appointment with Dr Chris.
Yes, you've guessed it she had a massive abscess, with oodles and oodles of puss that simply poured out, along side some underlying thick stuff that had been there a while. Sort of chronic abscess.
It was gross, but Ness was so good, never flinched or moved a muscle. Intravenous antibiotics and home.
Gaping wound, to be washed out twice a day, Baytril (that Sadie tried to muscle in on this morning 😂) plastic collar and visit to Dr C on Friday.
They slept in our room last night, OMG! and she seems ok this morning, weeing and pooing and eating.
But have been here before with a piggie and after initially doing well, she had to be pts. So really worried about our Ness.

Dr C more hopeful as she said on her first look (before she had a squeeze) she had immediately thought aggressive tumour - but it isn't.
My goodness have we had trouble getting the collar over her double chin!

Positive thoughts to the EastMids please

Thanks folks. Glad to hear the BASIL brigade are rallying. Madampig is bearing up and thought she could manage a strawberry and a blueberry for lunch with a side of watermelon.

DD has scoffed some strawberries and kept the tops for GP7 .

GP7 is recovering very well from her ordeal and is enjoying some garden time .

I am looking all snake eyes at her 'cos she decided to rattle the water bottle at 6am.

6- bloody- am piggie . . That's how she thanks us for the time ( taking her to the vet, cleaning her eye, doing the drops+gel at all hours , daily cage cleaning) and the expense ( thick end of £85) and the worry that she might not recover/need surgery/die .

Good jib we love the FurBaby

Our bill has come in at around £80.
Although I am not sure how much of that includes Sadie's tickles, head and chin strokes and being told she is beautiful!

I have told Nessa she needs to get a paper round or Saturday job real quick - or at least mow the lawns in swanky stripes instead of her current haphazard method.

Another beautiful day forecast, hope all the ailing piggies get out to soak up some healing rays and fortifying grass.

Sadie should divvy up for at least some f the bill, she said she was going to sulk in the carrier and not give the Vet the chance to look at her . Then accepts some compliments and attention it'd be rude not to .

GP7 demanded to go outside today (mainly to spy on the NDN Egg Hunts) . "I need to go out to make some Vit D in my skin " she claimed. "We guineas cannot synthesise things , we're complicated"

I think you'll find that's Vit C you cannot synthesise but you can have your grass day

"I will do rude sign with my claws. It's meant to be a "W" for What-eva but it might synthesise itself as a "V" ! "

Madampig has been very good about her vets bill. She's contributing by turning the contents of the veg drawer into compost for me to use in the garden. She says she's saving me a fortune.

How are all the invalids this week?

Nessa has stopped oozing pus and the hole in her side seems to be filling up with guinea pig. It is all nice and pink - apart from one tiny bit she has nibbled and she looks thinner😂
Not stopped Sadie having a crafty lick every once in a while or DH buying giant supersweet blueberries as a treat.

The giant blueberries are essential if Nessa's wound is to be filled with pig. Madampig is accepting her drops happily as long as they are accompanied by 'lions'.

She's looking thinner but that's to be expected of a middle-aged pig. Still eating well and doing her normal piggy stuff (sleeping with her chin on her food bowl)! So long as she's in no pain I'm leaving her to it.

Millie is just the same. Currently looking blissfully happy on DD2 lap. Dh has just cleaned her hutch without being asked😲. I think he is feeling guilty because despite being reminded several times to buy Burgess Excel today, he forgot .

Good to hear the other piggies are stable or improving 🙂

GP7 was seen by the vet again and given the all clear. The little gouged out area on her eye has now filed in with "Guinea-Pig EyeBall" .
Which takes some doing - filling in Bits of Guinea-Pig with newly manufactured Guinea-Pig takes some doing .

After all it takes 9-10 weeks to gestate an entire guinea-piglet , so a piece of rump skin or an eye layer .......easily 2-3 weeks .

No grazing today , 'tis grim here .

Our Ness is not doing too well I am afraid
The pus keeps accumulating and so the hole isn't healing.
She smells odd, quite unpleasant actually.
She's also not tolerating the wound cleaning as well as she was at the beginning of the week and today is certainly not herself.
So, as we're heading into a Bank Holiday it is off back to Dr Chris tomorrow. I am not as optimistic as I was that she'll get over this.
To compound things, Stinky Sadie had a bath today as she was grubby and wiffed. Never her most favourite human, she has spent the day either glaring or sitting with her back to me 😂😂😂

Poor Ness. She must be feeling sorry for herself. They are little worries! Hope Dr Chris is able to help. Is Sadie going too for company? She'll be able to tell him about the cruelty of her human subjecting her to unnecessary baths

I can’t remember when Millie didn’t smell bad. A bath was on the cards for her today too but the weather turned and it had to be postponed.

Fingers crossed for Nessa Dr Chris can think of something to get on top of the pus.

Just joining the thread to say I hope the vet can help Nessa. I have a lovely boar who’s been through a lot recently at almost 6 years of age (a lump removal and castrate - it was remove lump or PTS as it ballooned so quickly but was thankfully all fat and then an abscess after. He too smells a bit strange now but may have perked up a bit now he’s got 2 pig wives after his brother died). He just looks so slow next to my 9 month old girls.

Fingers crossed Ness

Maybe Dr Chris will suggest surgery - if there's an abscess or an infected cyst they could surgically debride it and remove the thing in its entirety. (Cysts have a 'capsule' which needs to come out in one piece )

Poor little piggie , they are so vunerable when they are ill and it is hard to make the right choices weighing up surgery/non-surgery .

My guinea-pigs had to have more baths when they were ill, they seem to just let their fur absorb the pee while they sit there feeling sorry for themselves . Then you feel guilty for bathing them while trying to convince them "Look a bum-dip will make you feel better and save your poor skin from Pee-Scald"

The night before we had Bert PTS I cuddled him for about eight hours , he was really whiffy even with his little baths but it was just one of those quiet bonding times you have with an end of lifer .

More Baytril, more wound cleansing and wait and see til Tuesday.
Op was discussed but the wound would be so big and keeping stitches etc intact and not nibbled (she was so distressed in the plastic collar last time) will be a big problem. Some of the skin around the wound now looks as if it is less viable that it was.
I don't want to put her through the stress of surgery if the outcome is still poor and of course Dr C couldn't say it wouldn't be.
Bless her, she's been so good and trusting. It is hard to do what's right for her.

There's the risk with any open area that they will harass the wound (or the willing cagemate will ) and you just know that they'd go to bed with stitches and wake up without them

So are you back to pus flushing and medication. (And extra treats for the little soul) Don't they have just the worst timing though? Bank Holiday (piggie thinks " oh , good time to be ill ". Erm , no . It isn't )
At least with my human patients I can dress wounds and insist that they leave well alone , and I have to consider very fragile skin but not fur coated skin.

Oh , just thought - Vit C .
Give her extra , you can get tablets for them to eat or crush and dissolve then give in a syringe . (I found this easier , they are contrary )

There's a Probiotic Powder with Vit C that I bought to sprinkle of food ( It won't harm the other pig to eat it , but you need to make sure the ill guinea gets their share ) DD put it on cucumber and fed it to the ill pig seperate from the others.

Vic C added to diet as of tonight's tea.👍

Vet said, (having squeezed loads of pus out of wound), that I was being too gentle with my squeezing. So these last days have only been removing a little when there is loads more in there
assume that's the source of her current distinctive aroma.
So, tomorrow will steel myself to press harder - and see what we find. My worry is new pus seems to be accumulating to replace that which is removed.
Aren't they are worry 😞??
More giant super sweet blueberries and blooming M&S parsley purchased today by DH (I buy it from Lidl).
He also decided to scare me half to death today by trying to climb a ladder whilst wearing his artificial limb ... bloody ejit that he is. The 3 of them (Sadie is still ignoring me post bath) are conspiring to do away with me 😂😂

In my Professional Capacity , seeing pus is an Occupational Hazard (though most of my patients don't think about biting me )

I'd soften it a bit with some warm salted water on gauze held onto her rump while you bribe her , it will make it easier to pick the scabby bit off (nice) then squeeze at the sides so you push the push out not down into the skin.

What about a syringe , can you get some warm water into the cavity and flush it ?
Hopefully the pus letting has improved things

Taken in board your suggestions 70
OMG, the blooming stuff is awful, but tonight we are I think at a point where there is very little or no pus in the wound. Whether Ness will spend the night producing more pus is anyone's guess!
All this drama from one small nip.

We have been cleaning out pus and administering Baytril as well...charming what we have to do for our piggies.

ATM I am wishing that they would go to sleep, it's been non-stop loud wheeking for the last 2 1/2 hours. You would think that 4 boars wouldn't be so noisy given their choice of, ahem, activity is futile

😂😂😂
DH is on pus patrol today, I am out. But am expecting blow by blow texts later

Glad you are winning the war on pus 😂

Millie is pooping on the sofa. Dd2 has spent the weekend with my mum and is catching up on guinea pig cuddles. Millie has been given treats grass in one hand and a blueberry in the other. She looked from one to the other. Gave a huge satisfied purring noise and chose grass first.