June is packing.
I'm typing this now because Susan hit me harder than I expected, and I want to bundle all of the grief into a nice package of philosophy and memories, then put it on a special shelf and carry on with another week in the mines.
It's not so much that Susan is gone or even gone relatively suddenly (the last was good, and as I look at June from here, I hope this will be the case again). It's because - and I told Mike I wasn't going to talk about this to the rest of the world because neither of us want to think about this - finding Susan this morning was a little... gross. Enough said.
Despite a full night's sleep, albeit with bad dreams, I crawled back into bed this afternoon and caught a few more hours. I was just feeling heavy. Then I had even worse dreams, so it's kind of been a crappy day.
And now I'm typing all of this when I should just move on to thinking happy June thoughts.
So, June had a tumour show up in, what, December? Went to the vet, and because of its position on the "mammary line," we decided not to have it removed. This is apparently a "whack-a-mole" zone for tumour development, as we saw with Joule about five years ago. June had a course of antibiotics on the slim-to-none chance that it was an infected gland, and we decided that if the tumour interfered with her running, walking, etc. then we'd have it taken out.
Instead, more tumours came, and a few weeks ago she became bony-backed with weight loss. Until then she was still running now and again (never much of a runner in the first place, though), and until a couple of days ago she was still rolling in the sand. She especially enjoyed some cauliflower and broccoli dinners last week, but she stopped eating seeds over the past 10 days and didn't really want water or tofu.
For the past week she has stayed mostly in her cottage, reluctant to come out except to have a wee in the sand and perhaps hang out there a bit. She still liked being patted and talked to. Then tonight we came home to find her under her playground ladder, ticking and too tired to move much. Mike gave her some syringe water, but she doesn't really want it. I helped her get into a new hideyhole behind the cottage - clearly she wants to feel very cozy and secure.
And that's where she is right now. I will be surprised if she lasts the night. I won't be surprised if, when I check on her in a few minutes, she's already gone.
Soon the only summer hamster who will be left is Cricket, and she feels a little light to me. Perhaps, given the scare she gave us over winter break, she is on borrowed time, too.
I don't know how old June is. The vet couldn't tell. As she was Terry's relative, perhaps she is his age (old) or a few months younger... who knows? She was a biiiiiiig girl for most of her time with us, as unusual as Terry with her satin and platinum-tipped coat and funky whiskers, and she puttered around happily every day. Played with Milkbones, frisked in the sand, carried on all kinds of seed rituals in her playground, flopped as much as she could fit of herself into her sofabed, stood on her cottage roof, and often ignored her two larger wheels for her tiny first wheel that wouldn't fit a regular dwarf ham, let alone a round thing like herself. She flung herself at sunflower seeds with a passion that may never be surpassed.
She was seldom eager to be cuddled, yet she suffered it with good cheer and clearly enjoyed our attention. I think she felt loved. I know she is.
Shari, I love reading your hamily tributes. I hope that both you AND june have sweet, sweet dreams tonight.
Posted by: Heather in Pa | 11 February 2009 at 02:49 PM