yesterday, shortly before 11am, miss fergusson died.

she was my sweetness, my cuteness, my fuzzy little piece of heaven. she was seven and a half, which is pretty ancient for a guinea pig. but when it's an animal you love, of course no length of time is enough.

she'd been sick for a couple of days. on tuesday evening, i noticed that she hadn't moved all day. she'd been in exactly the same spot. she was lying next to her pile of hay, but i don't think she'd eaten any of it, and she definitely hadn't had any water, or the veggies i'd put in her cage. guinea pigs' digestive systems have evolved to need food processing through them all the time. if they sit any amount of time without food, their digestive systems begin to die. so a guinea pig that's not eating is in serious trouble. so i got her out of her cage and forced her to eat some pellets. she wasn't interested in the piece of cantaloupe i'd left for her, which was unusual--she usually loves cantaloupe. i also made her drink some water. karl sat up with me for a long time, making her eat and drink.

eventually, we went to bed. when i woke up the next morning, i dreaded going downstairs, worried about what i'd find. when i did head downstairs, she was still alive, but hadn't moved from where i'd put her down the night before. i made her eat a few more pellets and drink a bit of water, then went up to shower and dress. i called the vet (the amazing Penn Vet School), to try to get her an appointment, but of course they were all booked up. so mid-morning, i headed to the ER at the penn vet school. they took her from me to examine her. after a long wait, the doctor came out to tell me she'd put miss fergusson on oxygen because she was worried about her breathing. guinea pigs do not respond well to stress, they can sometimes die from the stress alone. during the examination, dr. adams had noticed a change in fergie's breathing that is often a precursor to stress-death, and stopped the exam. she didn't know what was wrong with her, but was worried. whatever it was seemed serious. she gave me the options: admit her and get an x-ray, to see what was going on inside my little piggy, or take her home with some pain medication. dr. adams was worried about the stress of an x-ray and admittance, plus the bill would be $800-1200. so i took her home with pain meds. i asked the doctor about the possibility of it being bloat, which killed sweet wuza three years ago nearly to the day, and she said it may be. i learned, after poor wuza's death, that bloat can sometimes be treated with infant gas medicine (.1ml every 2 hours). i had bought some specifically in case fergie ever got bloat, so i started giving it to her. i spent the rest of that day giving fergie her medicine and force feeding her a timothy hay-based slurry. she was not happy about it, and in fact kept looking more and more miserable. she couldn't really walk, and just lay there limp on whatever surface she was on.

yesterday morning, i again woke up dreading finding her dead. she was still hanging on, but was in bad shape. karl and i gave her some more medicine, and some more food, and he went off to work. i stayed home to take care of her. she was on my lap while i was checking my email when she started to convulse. [it's harder than i thought it would be to even write that]. poor little piggy, she was in such pain. it seemed really bad, but i had a crazy last-ditch hope that she was about to pass whatever was blocking her system, then a whole big pile of poops would come out, and she would be ok. people whose guinea pigs have survived bloat describe such an ending. but no. after about 10 minutes of intermittent convulsions, she was dead. i was a mess. i called karl at work, sobbing. i could barely say anything, but he knew what had happened and said he was coming right home.

i sat there on the couch, holding my tiny furry lovely piggy, crying on her, petting her, apologizing to her. i watched as her eyes, which i tried to close, but they wouldn't stay shut, got cloudy, then wrinkly, then started to sink into her head. i felt, for a short time after she died, little gurgles in her stomach. i felt her get cold and stiff. karl came home, and we sat there on the couch for a couple of hours. i smelled my little piggy for the last time (piggies smell great--like a mixture of hay and bedding and themselves), smoothed her fur, tried not to get her too wet from tears. karl called the vet school to see about bringing her in for an autopsy and a cremation. they do autopsies and (group) cremations for free if your pet has been a patient there. we put her in a box on the towel i'd been holding her with, and got in the car. at the vet's, we explained who we were, and gave my sweet piggy to a nurse.

at home, i slept for a little while, then karl suggested we (he) clean up and put away fergie's cage. then, because i didn't want to just sit around and mope, we went out suit shopping for karl for the wedding. i needed an activity to keep my mind occupied, but that didn't require too much effort or thought. after that, i still didn't want to go home to the piggyless house, so we went to the movies and saw "the interpreter." finally, though, we had to go home. the cats wanted to be fed (now! we are hungry!) but there was no piggy to feed. the space where her cage was is so empty.

i know she lived a long and happy life, but i feel terribly guilty about how she died. i don't know for sure that it was bloat, and i know i did what i could for her, but i can't shake the feeling that it was something i did that caused the bloat. did i feed her too much cantaloupe? did all that sugar give her bloat? i know that she didn't die of old age, and i know that she died in pain. and i'm so sorry for that.

miss fergusson. she was probably the best piggy i've ever had (including the 5 or so we had when i was a kid, plus sweet wuza). she never bit anyone. well, there was the one time karl had red pepper juice on his finger and unwisely stuck it in her mouth, but that cannot be counted as her fault. she didn't squeak annoyingly at mealtimes. she liked to have her head rubbed and didn't mind being picked up. she wasn't afraid of the cats. i'll miss so much the way she smelled, her cute little furry lips, and the tiny tiny tongue that would sometimes like the salt off my skin: piggy kisses. her little piggy paws, and floppy big piggy ears. the way she would scamper up my chest and cuddle up in my neck.