Goodbye Soybean

[IamKat]

Hello all,

I know I've been somewhat absent from the forum for a few months, mostly because I've been so busy in life but also with the hams. Unfortunately, I return with some sad news that my poor sweet Soybean has finally left us

I've struggled a lot over the last few weeks with Soy, and her health has caused me endless worry. I hope you don't mind an account of the poor girl's terrible ordeal.

As some of you know from my previous posts, she had suffered from various unusual and mysterious ailments for about the past 8 months - before which she was a very healthy hamster. At first, it was just the autoimmune disease, which caused her to periodically lose large patches of fur, although usually, it would grow back eventually. We treated this with steroids and she tolerated this very well for about 5 months until she began to develop very swollen and sore looking eyes. This worsened and was not responsive to antibiotics. It turned out she had developed glaucoma, and would go blind. She was unresponsive to glaucoma treatment, and since the vet assured me glaucoma (once established) did not cause pain, we decided to leave her to it and see how things go. And so we let her be, and she adapted well to limited sight, she was still very much my happy, affectionate girl. But then... she got a terrible ear infection out of nowhere (or what we thought was an ear infection...) which we took swabs for and treated with antibiotics which she failed to respond to. Over the course of the 2 week treatment she suddenly went downhill - the ears completely clogged up and no matter how many times I cleaned them they would crust over. I had arranged to have her visit the vet for a proper cleaning under anaesthetic but all of a sudden she got a strange 'scab' on her tummy. I took her straight in, and the vet was shocked that the patch was actually necrotic tissue - as in the skin had completely died. She has only ever seen this in dogs and cats - never hamsters. We agreed to double the dose of steroids as it seemed likely related to the autoimmune condition. But it took little more than 4 days for her tummy to become covered in this necrosis. The vet decided she would not survive this without aggressive treatment, which I felt was a bit beyond my poor Soybean and after everything, it just wouldnt be fair to put her through it. We just needed to decide when to put her to sleep. Unfortunately that time was no less than 2 days later, as I felt her quality of life had so steeply deteriorated. For any of you that have experienced this kind of dteriorating in a pet you will know how very difficult it is to decide when the time is right. Especially since she was still eating and drinking. Needless to say it was a terrible time for us, weighing up her quality of life but not wanting to deprive her of any joyful experiences.

With everything that she went through, and with her condition towards the end, I feel sure we did the right thing at the right time. But it doesn't make it any easier. She was honestly the most kind natured and trusting hamster I have ever ever owned or met. Even when in discomfort or being given horrible treatments she never once lashed out or got irritated, and she always trusted me. I miss her so very much.

Soybean - thank you, my sweet girl, for being such a wonderful companion, and for being so brave and so trusting. I will never forget you, and I just hope in some way you felt I made the right choices for you.
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