Part 1: The Worst Day

Hey there, internet friends. Me again.

I realize it's been a while since I last posted, and I'm sure some of you are wondering what ever happened with Nigel's hurty leg.

Well... On Monday, February 11, I woke up to give him his medicine as per usual.

Because I am a slacker and like to sleep in as long as humanly possible, it was about 7:15 at this point. It was about 15 minutes before I had to leave to go to work, and I was barely rolling out of bed when I went to give Nigel his medicine. In the back of my brain, sometimes I tell myself that if I had been awake earlier, maybe things would have gone differently, but there's not much you can do to change the past.

This particular morning, I reached into Nigel's cage to grab him, and for some reason my hand came away sticky.

It turns out, during the night Nigel's leg had swollen so much that it actually split the skin, and he was losing quite a bit of blood.

Now, obviously hamsters don't really have a lot of blood to lose, so naturally I panicked. I called the animal emergency room and shouted at them "Nigel! He needs help! He's bleeding everywhere..." And they said "Ok ok, is Nigel a cat or a dog?" And I said "...um. None of the above?"

Turns out, the animal ER only takes "regular" pets. Apparently since hamsters are exotics, they have to go to the vet if there's an emergency. The only issue was that the vet didn't open for another hour and a half, so I had to try and stop the bleeding myself with tissues and hope. Eventually he stopped losing so much blood, but by this point he was woozy and started to pass out a little.

After far too long, I finally took Nigel in to the vet right as they were opening.

"What's the problem here?" they said.

"Um," I said, and put him on the counter.

"Oh my!" they said, and rushed him back to the doctor.

I was left to wait in the lobby, with no idea what would happen to my furry friend.

What felt like an eternity later, a nurse came out and gave me the good ol' "You should probably come back here."

There aren't going to be any more drawings after this because what followed was too sad, so you'll just have to imagine. But don't imagine too much detail, or you'll be depressed forever.

I was escorted back to an examination room where Nigel and I had been the week before to get his medicine. Nigel was sitting on the table again, trying to run around and dragging his leg behind him. The doctors explained to me that the swelling in Nigel's leg wasn't an infection, like we had hoped, but was actually a tumor that had almost doubled in size in the week since we had been in.

"But... can't we just amputate the leg?" I asked, "Like you said last week? Can't we save him?"

As it turns out, the cancer had spread from his leg, up through his abdomen, and was starting to turn up in his other leg. As things stood, he only had about a week, maybe a week and a half to live. And it wasn't going to be a pleasant week.

The nurses gave me a little time alone with Nigel before we made a decision, and as I held him in my hands, he crawled up in my coat sleeve and hunkered down. He stayed there all the way through my discussion with the doctors, through the final decision, and through the filling out of the paperwork.

Finally the nurse came to take him away for the very last time, and he clung to my shirt with every teeny tiny ounce of strength he had left in his body. She held my poor, shivering little friend in one hand and gave me a hug with the other. Now, those that know me well know that I am not a generally weepy person, but I will openly admit that a shed several tears that day.

A special thanks to the staff of the Clearfield Veterinary Clinic for their care and concern for Nigel and for me, 

for the poems and cards I've received from them, even a month later,

and for their genuine love for animals, no matter the size.

I still sometimes look for him when it's feeding time, but it's only just little Bandy in there all alone. The poor thing has been a little bit neglected since Nigel has been gone. I cleaned the blood from the cage and replaced the bedding, but it took me two weeks to replace the water. And I didn't clean the cage again for another month. People keep asking me if I'm going to get another hamster or if I'm going to give Bandy away, but at this point... I've made the decision to not decide for a while.