Back and forth from home today to visit my doctor. Picked up a bug somewhere along the line that turned into a sinus and throat infection. I've been sick for two weeks, and getting progressively worse. Fortunately, it's the kind of thing that responds quickly to the miracles of modern medicine.
Also lucky for me it had warmed up quite a bit today, so I wasn't uncomfortably cold while out running around while sick. With temps around 20°F (-6° C), and no breeze, the locals were mostly out and about without hats or gloves, jackets unzipped. The fellows at the local Lunds grocery store who carry groceries out to your car even had on short sleeved shirts. I'm still "not from around here" and I am sick, so I had on a hat and warm jacket.
Also on a medical note, we just got the results back from the autopsy on our pet rat. The cause of G'Kar's death was apparently a heart defect that made him too weak to be anesthetized. The good news is that he tested completely negative for mycoplasma, which is very common in the domestic rat population, and highly contagious.
This is good news because we didn't have a proper quarantine period when he came into the house, and his cage was in the same room with our lady rats for several weeks. Our vets says that since he was clean, it is nearly certain that they don't have it either.
We're still very sad to have lost him. But we're so very glad to know he didn't die of something contagious.
Now, when we decide to bring a new male rat into the house, we'll need to try to seek out a breeder who is fairly certain that s/he doesn't have mycoplasma in her/his colony. You can't be positive with such things, I know. But outside of finding a lab rat, a reputable breeder is our best chance to avoid introducing the illness into our home. We just got lucky with our adoption from the Humane Society, and then a pet store rat.
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