*LoVe FoReVeR*

21st august 2008, thursday



This is the story of Pocco...
Just in case you are curious, she is a guinea pig...

After attempting to rear a snake, and a really SOON-TO-BE-HUGE puppy...
My brother decided that perhaps, guinea pigs would be fine for my paranoid mom to accept to...
By the end of last December, we had Pocco-Cutie-Boo, and Pocca-the-ultimate-white-male...



Life was fun, watching Pocco grow...
Our family regretfully, practices favouritism, and i bet by now, you should know which guinea pig was the one favored...

Pocco had this very likeable personality, or should i say, Guinea-ality...
She was always the one whom somehow, flaunt her "cutieness" in so many ways...
She would climb high up just to get to be pampered on the head whenever someone has come home...
She would greet people whenever someone walks out of the room in the morning...
She would be so excited and running around whenever someone sits around the cage, especially when that someone starts unfolding the packet of pellets...
She would stuff herself with all the possible food she found within her small tiny cage...
She just had all the funny characteristics that a typical guinea pig, e.g. Pocca, would not have...

She was pregnant by the time we had her...
And had 4 litters, with only one surviving...



This is Pocci. I should say, she is the prettiest guinea pig that i've ever seen in my life... Serious! you can try to compare the guinea pigs found in any pet shop and you will come to notice that she, indeed, is a beutiful baby...

I thought, it was time to seperate the males from the females...
cause i was afraid that they might mate again...
and Pocco would not have enough time for resting after a period of 2-months of gestation and giving birth to 4 babies...
We did, seperated them for a short period of time...
until one fine day, someone who was selfish enough (not to mention any names here...) decided that they should mate and give birth cause that someone's cousin wanted one...

It was definite that i was not eligible to say anything...
cos after all, they were my brother's pets...
it was him, who brought them home...

Pocco once again, gave birth to 2 healthy babies...



The place by then, was definitely too small for all the 5 piggies... Thus, transformation was affirmative...
We allocated a place slightly next to the living room, and dismantled the cage..
and built them a bigger place...


(I always love this picture... Look at Pocci, she was looking at me so innocently... Next to me, was actually a door bell plucked into a socket... My mom thought they should be having some music therapy once a while... Aw....)

Then Pocci (Pocco's first baby) gave birth to another 2... (Aiks, i know it's complicated...)
Actually i should say, Pocci pregnant slightly after Pocco was found pregnant... (Phew...)





In between the period of us rearing them, there were other big issues, such as them having mites...
Pocco was losing lots of furs and she had somewhat, discoloration...
I went online to check and i thought, oh well, just have to clean all of them up and it's gonna be alright...

Due to someone's (yeah, i wonder who's that...) ignorance, Pocco was pregnant somewhat right after the second time she gave birth...
This time round, she seemed normal to me, although she looked a little too tired...
I told myself, no matter what, this will be the last time she's gonna be pregnant...
I wanted her to rest...

Two weeks ago...



She was still happy as she was after giving birth..
all her cuti-ness were present...
She was still Pocco, at least i thought she was...
Until last Saturday...
When i woke up and saw...



One of the babies was squash...
Real flat...
I cried...
I kept giving myself excuses...
But it didn't work...
I carried the baby, and wrapped with newspaper...
I have no idea how to discard it, but to put it into a waste-paper dusbin....
I look at Pocco, and picked her up...
I thought she was depressed...
Cause one of her babies died...



It turned out that she has not been eating since the night...
And i got really worried...
But i hesitated to bring her to the vet...
cause most of the vets are not well-versed with small animals...
I don't know where to bring her...
and i am really tight these days...
i thought, she would be fine...
but sean insisted on bringing her to the vet...
we checked online, found a clinic, and sent her there in the night...
it was very expensive, and the vet admitted that he knows very little about guinea pigs...
He told us to buy baby formula to force feed Pocco...
and i thought it would be just so simple...
and hoping that the next day she would be alright again...
the vet gave her an antibiotic injection...
and off we went, to the supermart, for Pocco's food...
We fed her, and she ate, really lovingly...
For once, i thought she's gonna be alright...

She slept in a small but comfortable basket with me in the room...
and i woke up in the middle of the night to check on her...
to feed her...
I waited for her to pass motion...
cause she hadn't for a very long time since i picked her out from the cage, considering guinea pigs do it every now and then...
I realized that she wasn't doing well anymore...
she seemed to be unable to swallow her food...
and she seemed to be in pain somehow...
i wrapped her in her favourite towel...
and held her tight to my chest...
i talked to her...
and she seemed to be listening very closely...

The next morning, we brought her back to the clinic...
and this time round, the vet (not the same one) had a little more expertise in dealing with small animals...
Pocco, at this point of time, had diarrhea...
The vet took the stools and examined...
and the discoloration, was some signs according to him...
He looked at her, and said something that i would remember for life...
"This is Bad..."
"Her stools have very high content of blood... it's internal bleeding..."
"You should have brought her to the vet when she had discoloration!"
"She's not going to make it..."
"How old is she? one and a half years old? It too YOUNG for her to die..."

I cried so hard...
So shamefully disregarding people around me...
I just held the basket and cried...

I opted for euthanasia...
but sean rejected firmly, saying that we should bring her home...
I gave in, and i took her out of the clinic...

It was really depressing throughout the whole journey home...
i hesitated to carry the basket cause i can't stand to see Pocco suffer...
I hated everyone who treated her badly when she was still healthy...
I was self-blaming, nonetheless...

We reached home...
I cleaned her body...
and wrapped her with her towel...
took her into my arms...
crying, wailing, and cursing myself...
I wanted to take down some photos, of our last moments...





She passed away peacefully, in my arms...





But i was blessed, with sean by my side all this while...
We buried on the ground, near the swimming pool...

Now all i can do, is to take care of the newborns...



I miss you very much...
everything reminds me of you...
the towels, the syringe, my room, the basket, the cage...
I love you , Pocco...