[Gpdd] MISC: Passing of Meeper

[Libby Bradford]

Hello to everyone and every pig.

I haven't posted recently, but I have been trying to read all the 
digests.  I just wanted to post that Meeper, my oldest piggie ever, has passed.

Meeper was born on November 28, 1997.  He was the "surprise" inside of a 
piggie I rescued from a pet store.  Snowflake, Meeper's mother, was always 
a very scared little piggie who often had seizures.  She had been returned 
to the pet store after biting her previous owner.  Snowflake always had a 
head tilt from the day I brought her home.  She was the first pregnant 
piggie I had and at that time, we didn't know much about the birth process.

On the evening of November 28th, Snowflake let out a loud squeak.  When we 
came to see what was wrong, there was a little black nose sticking out of 
the house.  We found this strange since Snowflake was solid white.  It 
quickly struck us that Snowflake's babies were arriving.  We waited for 
quite a while, but no more babies appeared.  She just had one large 
baby.  The difficult thing was deciding what to name him.  I wanted to name 
him Noel, but my mother didn't like that name.  We soon noticed that he 
wandered around, often following his mother, making "meeping" sounds, just 
like the Beaker character on the Muppets.  So ... our new baby was named 
Meeper.

Meeper had few problems in life.  A kidney stone, UTI's, a sore in his 
mouth were about all he had, and a little bit of stiffness in his legs.  In 
December of 2003, we noticed that he had started losing weight.  When 
checked over by the vet, he had several problems in his mouth, including a 
large abscess.  Meeper was put under and the vet cleaned up his mouth and 
trimmed is teeth, which were also a problem.  Since then, he has had 
another procedure to correct more dental problems and another surgery to 
remove an abscess on the outside of his jaw.  During all this, he was 
getting hand fed with critical care, which he slurped off the spoon.

About 10 days ago, we noticed that Meeper's legs were sitting at an odd 
angle.  He had had a bit of stiffness in his joints a year before, but had 
recovered from that completely.  This time, his legs were jutting out and 
almost looked broken.  Yet, he was himself, begging for treats and doing 
all the normal piggie things.  Two different vets took a look at him, but 
could not conclusively come up with the cause of his problems.  They did 
find that he had a stone lodged in his urethra that he had not yet 
passed.  Our regular vet wondered if it was something neurological, since 
he could not find a physical cause.  He mentioned that there was a slim 
chance it was something called LCM, which is contagious to piggies and 
humans.

He started deteriorating on Wednesday.  He could not get his back legs 
under him, even with additional Vitamin C and pain medication.  Early 
Thursday morning, he started peeing blood.   I left work early to go and 
check on him.  He had, as I've heard others say, that look in his eyes.  I 
had promised him we'd keep going as long as he wanted us to.  He could 
barely move and was in some pain, even with a recent dose of 
prednisone.  It broke my heart, but I decided we should have him put to sleep.

As anyone who has had to make this decision knows, it is very hard.  The 
vet agreed that it was the kindest thing to do.  We let him munch another 
piece of his beloved parsley, kissed him on the nose and then let the vet 
take him.

Knowing how upset I was, the vet called later that evening. Since he had to 
take samples for LCM testing, he did a necropsy as well.  He found cysts in 
both of Meeper's kidneys and a stone had completely blocked one kidney and 
shut it down.  He also had growths on his liver and spleen and an abscess 
on his prostrate.  The blood that was coming out in his urine was coming 
from his urethra, but not from just the one stone.  Apparently, another 
stone had started down and passed the first one, tearing his urethra.  He 
did not find any real physical cause for his back legs, which means he 
couldn't positively rule out the LCM.

My mother and I both feel a tremendous loss on Meeper's passing.  He was a 
"tough little guy" as the vet called him and he spent his entire life with 
us.  He was 6 1/4 years old.

He was a sweet and loving pig that would purr contentedly only after 
putting up a large fuss when picked up.  Since his problems started in 
December, I would often sit with him, feeding him and scratching his nose 
which was his favorite.  He had a white stripe down the middle of his 
forehead, which I would comb in different directions.  He would look at me 
like "Would you quit messing with my hair????"

I will miss him very much.  He joins the 14 piggies we have lost since 2001 
(7 in the year 2003).

Libby and the dwindling herd of 7