Hammie Hopkins is sick...

So my little baby Hopkins is sick with a cold and I'm sure it's because I gave it to him, I feel so bad about it too. I didn't realize that humans can transfer colds to hamsters but apparently they can. He has been sneezing and wheezing. He sounds so congested too, every time he would breathe it sounded like he was having a hard time because he was so plugged up. His little nose looked strained when he would try to breathe, it was like if you took a person with a bad cold and shrunk him down to 4 inches tall and he was so plugged up that he would try to cough and nothing would come out, that's exactly what Hoppy sounded like. He started getting sick about a week ago and he was not getting better.

When hammies get sick they usually die very easily and I just am not ready to let him go yet. My last hammie, Jose, died really fast and young and I just can't let that happen to Hopkins too so I tried all these things to make him better. I cleaned up his cage so there was less irritating smells to his respiratory system, I bought Vick's vapor pads that sit in a warming thing and the smell fills up the room to help break up his congestion, that didn't work either. Yesterday I had the day off because my finals finished Wed. and Thurs. is normally a school day for me so since school was out I got the day off, I had already planned to go to my mom's to make toffee and my friend, Erica, works at a vet's office in SLC; so I decided to ask her what to do and possibly plan a visit to the vet. After talking to Erica I decided the best option was to take him in and get antibiotics because it was probably a respiratory infection and could lead to pneumonia, especially since he wasn't getting any better after so long. Brett was so nice and didn't even say anything about me taking Hopkins in, I thought he would think it's a waste of money (he probably does think that) but he didn't complain because he knows it meant a lot to me, which I really appreciated.

So Hopkins got poked and prodded and inspected and yep, he has a respiratory infection. He got weighed on the scale and he is only 6 grams, so about .22 lbs! He is so tiny. The vet showed me how to give him these drops of antibiotics in his mouth and the vet had to hold him and shove that thing in his mouth, but she was able to do it so fast. I expected to be able to do it fast too, but this morning it was an ordeal, he did NOT want that thing near him. He was squirming and squeaking and I felt so bad holding him still. He was probably so confused why I was doing that to him. It took me 20 min before I decided to try to put the antibiotics on bread because he loves bread. So I got a tiny piece so that I knew he would eat all of it and I put the antibiotics on it and he ate it!! I was soooo happy because for one thing, he got the antibiotics in his system, and two, because it wasn't a traumatic experience for him like holding him down was. I just hope that tonight he will eat the bread again and that he won't think I'm evil and hate to be held by me anymore!

On another note, we went to Temple Square with my family to view the lights on Monday. It was a lot of fun, we ate at the Lion House then walked around the temple. Vanessa just loved me that night and wanted me to carry her so of course I loved that, but then Brett bribed her to let him hold her! It was a lot of fun. We missed Corey's family and Marie's this year though. :(