[Gpdd] HEALTH, CARE, BEHAVIOR: Oliver's Story

Bina Gabbriel samscello at gmail.com
Thu Nov 11 22:39:23 EST 2010


Hello Guinea Pig folks! Oliver asked asked me to post the story he wrote
about his recent experiences. He has a lot of time on his paws. I have
corrected his spelling and grammar, which were atrocious, but these are his
words.
Bina

Oliver's Story

It all began the day I was born at the end of June. As soon as Bina laid
eyes on me, she knew she loved me. I was *that* cute. She says I was all
head and barely any body, but that's what my sister Kanani looked like, too,
so I think that's normal. Kanani was adopted out to what Bina says is a
lovely family near her hometown in Connecticut. Me, she decided to keep,
even though I make the herd 6 instead of 5 and she's only supposed to have 3
because that's how many of us pigs her landlord thinks she has. She also
kept me even though I am a boy. I'm so cute and loving she couldn't resist.
But everyone else is a girl, including her two dogs, so what to do? After
much thought, heart and soul-searching, she finally remembered about Tufts
Veterinary School's animal clinic. She talked to them and indeed, they have
an exotics vet who knows so much about guinea pigs and does a lot of GP
castrations! Woo hoo! There was light at the end of the tunnel. I wouldn't
be alone my whole life. I wouldn't be adopted out to strangers. I wouldn't
make things harder on Bina by insisting she adopt another boy to be my pal.
I would stay at home with my family and friends - without making more pigs
along the way! It was going to cost about $340 USD and be of some risk to my
life, but overall, we both felt it was the best decision for our particular
situation.

Three weeks ago I went with Bina and her friend Cindy in the car for the
very first time. Cindy held me inside her sweater and sang to me whenever I
got scared. She made up songs with my name it them. I settled down
immediately each time she sang. The drive took two hours ... in other words:
forever! Finally we arrived and met Dr. Mayer. He was very nice and gentle
and had tons of knowledge. It was a Well Pig visit to be sure I was healthy
enough for castration surgery. It was also an opportunity for Dr. Mayer to
check out Bina's GP husbandry knowledge and skills because she had to bring
samples of our food and photos of our habitats for the doctor and he asked
her a lot of questions! He was very impressed with how calm and
well-socialized I was and with all the information Bina knew and how she
cared for us. She asked him if he's ever lost any GP's from castration
surgery. He said while it could happen in theory, in the ten years he's been
doing castrations, they have not lost one pig. Not one. They average about
two castrations per month! I was sure glad to hear that. She asked why there
is so much information on the internet about GPs being so sensitive to
anesthesia or surgery and why so many are reported to die. He said he
honestly doesn't know. He said there, at Tufts, it's considered routine
surgery. But he has seen info on vet-chat boards on the internet, comments
like, "I lost another guinea pig today." He said he's mystified. He can't
say what went wrong in these cases because he is not right there when it
happened. He wonders if doctors don't keep the GPs body temp warm enough
during surgery because after only 10 minutes under anesthesia, our body temp
plummets to lethal levels without the aid of a warmer. He doesn't know if
this is the issue, but he wonders. In the end, Bina's concerns were allayed,
I was deemed ready for surgery and Bina was asked to email the doctor her
photos of our habitats so he could show them to his vet students as prime
examples.Triple yay!

Two weeks later, Bina and I drove back. She dropped me off early in the
morning, then went to a local hotel to rest and hang out until 4pm when I
was to be ready for pick-up. The doctor said he called her twice during the
day. Once to let her know the surgery went successfully and the next to let
her know I'd started eating and would be ready for discharge at 4pm. We were
sent home with instructions to keep me separate from the girls for another 3
weeks (2 for sure plus 1 for safety) due to there still being some residual
sperm in my system. We expected this since we'd been reading up on things on
the internet. We also went home with two medications: one antibiotic and one
for pain. Both were liquid and were to be given by mouth using a needle-less
syringe. Both tasted absolutely yummy so giving them to me was no trouble at
all, Bina later said. On the way home, we stopped to visit Cindy so she
could do some of her special trauma-healing energy work on me. I liked this
very much. I ate some veggies at her house and then went to bed in my
apartment when we got home at Bina's.

During the middle of that night, sometime after Bina fell asleep around 2am,
me or one of my piggy friends (I will not say who as I've been sworn to
secrecy) started singing. Yes, you heard right folks. There was a guinea pig
*singing.* Bina had never heard it before but she'd read about this very
rare sound GPs sometimes make, though no human knows why we do it or what it
means. As she had been awakened from a deep sleep, Bina at first called out
to us to "keep it down over there you guys," but soon realized that it was
not normal pig chatter or cooing or rumble-strutting she was hearing. It was
actually an entirely new sound she'd never heard before in her life. It was
similar to the sound of birds singing, except that it was clearly not birds
but a single GP. Not only did the GP vocalist not stop when she called out
to us, but the singer didn't stop for some 5-10 non-stop minutes! It was
most amazing and beautiful, I have to agree! There was silence for several
minutes, during which time Bina probably fell asleep again, I think, and
then the singing started up again for another 5-10 minutes. Later Bina said
she considered getting out of bed and turning on a light to see who was
making such a beautiful sound, but she realized both her movement and the
light in the darkness would likely have caused the singer to stop. She
stayed in bed and just listened, like the rest of us.

The next morning, I noticed Bina got up around 7-something. She was going to
stop at the bathroom, but decide first to check on me to make sure I looked
ok and that my incisions had not bled on the white towels she'd placed in my
apartment the night before. She was happy to see there were poops and urine
and no blood, but was alarmed to realize *I* myself was not in my *own*
apartment. She turned to look into the girl's abode and thought she saw me
there, but thought, "no, that has to be Alice or Olivia." But it wasn't. She
was right. It was lil ol' me :D "Oh, my God! Oliver!" she exclaimed. "What
are YOU doing in with the girls!?!?" Yes, dear friends, I, Oliver Blackfoot,
guinea pig of a mere 4 months of age and so recently castrated, that night,
for the first and only time in my life, had scaled the wall between my
apartment and the girls' next door and spent a total of about 5 unsupervised
hours with them. With all 5 of them!

Needless to say, Bina was flabbergasted.

She says we'll know in a couple of months just what the results of our
middle of the night tryst will be. But she feels she has some understanding
now what piggy singing is all about. She says it has something to do with
the film Young Frankenstein, at the end where Madeleine Kahn's character
sings, "Oh sweet mystery of life at last I've found you!" I don't know what
that means but she thinks it's very appropriate and funny, in an "if you
want to make God laugh, tell her your plans" kind of way.

Cindy says she's sure the girls coached me over the fence. That such a feat
on the night of such a surgery must have been a coordinated group effort.

It's been a week since then. I've stayed put in my own apartment because
there is now a giant barricade between us. No more midnight rendezvous, Bina
says. My med cycles are complete. Incisions are healing nicely. Appetite has
been fine all along. So Bina thinks I am out of the woods.

Two more weeks to go and then ..... yee-haaaaaaaaa!

Oliver Blackfoot


-- 
Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, yet flooding the
river.    Malagasy Proverb

Every living being is a stream of love. Let us allow someone to taste our
love, and let us taste someone else’s.   Swami Kripalu

www.SANCTUARYFORKIDS.org      www.HALFTHESKY.org
www.VDAY.org<http://www.ATTACHMENTPARENTING.org>



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