October has it out for me!

Well, in a little less than 45 minutes I will be allowed no food and no liquid until after 8 or 9am- after I get this stupid Upper GI over.

In other (more important) news I had another animal emergency this evening: this time it was one of mine. AJ is one of my wild rehabs; he is an 8 month old squirrel. I went out to the wilding cage today (wilding cage being exactly what it sounds like; a cage you put a critter in to get them ready for release in the wild) and AJ had a bloody face. I called my small animal vet (yes, I have a different specialized vet for each species I care for), told her AJ had a mouth injury…

(odd that it’s that kind of injury because I’m known for my work in rehabbing squirrels with facial injuries usually from being hit by cars or malocclusion cases and amputees. To my knowledge I’m the only one in my area that has been able to have squirrels thrive on a liquid diet (that was later published) for 2 months or longer during multiple dental/facial surgeries and the healing process. Heh, and the vets wonder why I’ve changed my phone number half a dozen times in the last 4 years.)

…and I was on my way. Soooo, turns out AJ managed to rip out one of his front upper teeth. This in itself is amazing. Because of the structure of their teeth, losing one violently is usually fatal. So the following was no surprise- in the process he broke his upper jaw and decimated his sinuses (if you’ve ever seen a squirrel tooth you know they are shaped like the letter “C”- the small part we see is just that- a very small part. The rest of the tooth goes up into the skull and curves straight back through the sinuses). The other tooth now resides at an odd right angle. Due to the extensive blood loss and damage we were unable to remove the remaining tooth. If we’d taken it he would have probably bled to death or we would have destroyed more of his upper jaw. Solution? Liquid diet, antibiotics and pain killers for two to three weeks until the skull heals, then we remove the tooth; $400.00 later- happy upper-toothless squirrel on a specialized diet.

Unfortunately this makes him a permanent. Fortunately he was only a few days old when he came in so he doesn’t know the virtues of living a wild life (we were planning on a late October release).

This month is off to a shitty start!