How sad. It brought back the memories of my own guinea pig's last days.
Like yours, I adopted him when I was a child. I'm so sorry that happened to you.... and at such a young age.
Thank you for sharing this story. I hope parents thinking of letting their children adopt a guinea pig as their first pet will read this. No pet should be thought of as 'disposable.'
I wish parents would be more realistic when they let their kids have pets. They need to understand that no matter how responsible their kids may seem to be, it is the
parents who will be the pet's primary care-giver. They need to make sure the kids do everything correctly (by double-checking everything) and will need to do things themselves if their kids don't. I've seen too many parents who don't realize this, and the end result for the pet is awful.
However your story shows that even when parents are supervising their kids and their pets bad things can still happen.
As a result of that, it is better still to not let children have pets at all until they're older and more responsible. It will be in the best interest for the animals if the parents were the pets' owner. That way kids could still form a special relationship with animals, but the parents can make informed decisions regarding the pet's welfare.