Months since Guineas passed and I miss them more than ever.

[Oham_]

Hi

So this has been a really tough year. In February, one of my two guinea pigs, Snowflake, suddenly became ill. We took her to the vets who prescribed her some medicine. The next morning we awoke to find out she had passed away during the night.

This was a really, really devastating blow, as Snowflake was such a loved little guinea and she had gone downhill so quickly. However I feel like a huge source of comfort for me after Snowflake died was Fudge, our other guinea pig. In the months following Snowflake's death, Fudge developed a cancerous tumor on her leg which kept grew to the point where she eventually couldn't walk at all. It was clear she was in pain so in July we took Fudge to the vets and she was put to sleep - the hardest thing I've ever done.

It's now been almost 5 months since Fudge died and 10 months since Snowflake died, but I still feel as horrible as ever. We had them for 7 years and they really became part of the family. I think about them and miss them every day, and find myself almost forgetting that when I go to visit home from university, they won't be there. I know that we were so lucky that they both lived for 7 years, and neither of them had any health problems until their last year, but I still wish they were with us longer.

How long will it take for me to recover from this? It seems like I'm the only one in my family who hasn't "gotten over" them yet. Anyone else outside the family doesn't get it because they were "just guinea pigs." I'd like to think I've gotten somewhat better, but I haven't - I can't look at photos of them or even really think about them to much without feeling a horrible sense of loss and just an ache in my heart.
Is this a normal way to react to losing your guinea pigs?

 

[Guinea Pig Papa]

I'm so sorry about your losses. Most everyone here knows how you feel to some degree or other.

Everyone is different, and handling loss varies from person to person. What I can tell you from a personal standpoint, is that for me so far it never goes away. It gets easier to deal with, but it hasn't gone away.

I lost my first boy in October of 2016. I'm not over it. Not by a long shot. It's gotten easier to deal with, but thinking of him can, and usually does bring me to tears. I miss him so much it aches.

Fast forward to August of this year. My boar Sly had been having regular dental work since December of 2016, and he had endured 11 rounds of it. He was such a tough little pig. After his last molar trim in July, he really never did fully recover. We saw flashes and encouraging signs, and some days we truly believed he was back to normal. And then he started to fade.

Rounds of different antibiotics didn't get rid of the rattle in his chest, and I had to make the heart wrenching decision to end his suffering. And suffering he was. And that hurts every single day. It's a decision that I made, knowing it was the right one and I still can't forgive myself for doing it. The only thing he had was his life and love to give, and I feel to this day that I took that from him. I KNOW I did right by him, but it was so, so painful. Every time I see his picture, my heart breaks and I can't hold back tears.

It will eventually get easier to deal with. But I know that I will never, ever forget either one of my boys and as it begins to get easier to remember them with smiles, the tears are still ever-present.

Take it one day at a time. Your pigs were very much loved, and they've taken that love to the Rainbow Bridge with them. One day, you'll find them there.

 

[LittleSqueakers]

I'm so sorry for your losses, @Oham_ . I am also missing my pigs terribly. I just lost my last two back at the beginning of this year.

First, my senior sow was diagnosed with an abdominal mass. As if she understood that her prognosis was bad, she declined rapidly and passed only two days later, though she had been showing no signs of illness or pain up to that point. Not even two months later, my almost-six-year-old boar whom I'd had since he was a pup started having issues with GI stasis. After a lot of hard work, he seemed fully recovered, but only a week later, he started to decline again. The vet suspected that he must have had some underlying condition that was causing his problems, so we were simply fighting a losing battle. He died a week from his sixth birthday.

I had a pair of young foster boys for a short while after that, but I was just about to graduate school and start a new career. I simply knew that I would not have the time nor the resources to care for guinea pigs for a while, at least until things in my life became a little more settled. So I felt that the best thing to do was to send the fosters back to the rescue before I got too attached to them. I had already explained to the rescue that I couldn't keep them for long, but giving them back was still the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

After that, I had no animals in my house. I felt completely unmoored, as if my house wasn't my home anymore. Even the way my house was arranged didn't make sense without animals living in it. None of the stacks of fleece or cardboard blocking the nooks and crannies around the furniture had any meaning anymore. I mean, there's still this huge cage up against the wall. There should be something living there, but there isn't. It's like living with a ghost.

I've felt a little better since adopting a little Russian dwarf hamster named Blueberry; at least my house feels like a home again. But I still miss the close relationship that I shared with my pigs, and I haven't stopped thinking about them. There is so much more to them than I ever guessed when I got Tribble and Nibbler over six years ago. People who haven't had guinea pigs or never took the time to really learn about them can't understand what remarkable creatures they are. My family were always half-appalled at the care and attention that I lavished on "a couple of guinea pigs." But then, they were also amazed and impressed by guinea pigs that would follow me through the house and come up to meet strangers sitting around my living room. They still don't completely get it, but I like to think that I've maybe instilled a little bit of a sense of respect for the little creatures! I've just started a new job, and my hope is that maybe a while from now, when things are a little more settled, I might be able to have guinea pigs again. It's just one of the driving forces that keeps me moving forward at present.