Kelsey

I receive emails daily from an animal advocacy group here in town.  Usually they're about dogs and cats:  Owner surrenders, lost pets, people who need help paying for vet bills.  Sometimes they're about rescue groups that need help, or are running an adoption event.  Very rarely they'll be about an exotic, a bird or ferret or whatnot. 

One time, it was a rat. 

I actually got a barrage of messages about this rat, because everybody in Las Cruces knows me now as "the rat lady."  So I got the regular email, plus another email, plus a Facebook PM, followed by a phone call.  I was feeling pretty popular by the end of the day. 

The rat in question was a tiny little female who had been caught running loose in somebody's backyard.  It had been caught in the bird feeder and kept overnight in a trash can.  The people were very nice, the sort of upper-middle-class household whose home is just a little too clean and who wanted the rat on their back porch gone without hurting it.  They were very gracious and I thanked them profusely for doing the right thing by the rat instead of trying to hurt it. 

When I got there, the rat was terrified.  She'd had a harrowing time of things -- alone outside, then captured, then forced to spend a whole long night in a trash can out on a porch.  She trembled a little when I picked her up, but she was OK.  That's when I noticed the tumor: A big mammary lump just inside her hind leg.  Suddenly I had a sick feeling in my stomach when I realized I had a pretty good idea why she was alone outside. 

To be fair, she could have escaped from her home.  There was an elementary school nearby, she could have been a class project that got loose.  But I'm suspecting that somebody didn't want to deal with medical expenses and "set her free." 

Well, anyway.  She got named on the fly, because I made a vet appointment for her on the ride home.  She was picked up on Elks street, so the first name that popped into my head was "Kelsey," and it stuck. 

Kelsey was a sweet black variegated girl.  High-energy and terrified from her ordeal, but she did enjoy burrowing and would rest underneath your shirt and start to relax after awhile.  She never quite trusted me enough to take food from my hand, but she'd sniff it and then look at me warily, waiting for me to drop it so she could chow down.  She would let you know when she was "done" with any situation; she was feisty and sassy and not afraid to bite if you pushed her limits. 

Still, that tumor had to go.  If it had been in another part of her body, I might have considered leaving it, but it was growing into her leg and impeding her movement, and she was having a hard time keeping it clean.  I'd been down that road already with Echo, and had no interest in returning.  Tumors are the reson why I choose to keep boys.  The plan was simple:  Get the removal, nurse her through the post-op, then send her to live with the girls at Callie's. 

Fate had other plans. 

The tumor was much more involved than it had looked from the outside.  Bigger, too -- it was growing into her body as much as outside of it, and was involved in both her leg and the tissue around her anus.  It had its own blood supply, and the shock of the removal was just too much for her.  She started to recover from surgery, but then her tiny body gave out. 

Losing Kelsey hit me hard.  I still second-guess my choice to have the tumor removed, even though I know there was no other option.  She was so young, and so bright, it was a shame to have her taken after just a few short weeks at my house.  I can take a little comfort at least in knowing that she had a wonderful, comfortable time while she lived at my house.