Lost my (fur)kid - Norbert

Well Thursday night (1/31) my year went from looking like it was going to be better to no longer knowing if will be better, worse or equally as terrible of a hell as last year. The picture above is the last picture ever of Norbert and me... from after his heart stopped and stayed stopped.

I don't remember the exact events now. Just know I was going to get ready for bed but then went back to living room for something. I heard a sound that I never heard from my boys or from any other rat.


I went to check on them and saw it was Norbert because every time the sound happened his chest jumped - for lack of a better term. I knew I had to get him out and with me because I had a feeling he was dying. For some reason there was bedding stuck in his mouth and his tongue was like a dark purple, instead of the normal pink and I could see it against his teeth. It looked like mine feels during my one type of non-epileptic seizure.

Not sure how long it took, but I held him against my chest. I was hoping feeling my heartbeat would help him make it through whatever was wrong because I could feel his heart was racing, even for a rat. He was pretty limp, so he couldn't crawl down my shirt like he normally did. He couldn't even hold onto my shirt, I had to hold him against me. 

I felt his heartbeat racing and then all the sudden it stopped for probably 20 seconds. Then it started again for 5-10 seconds and I believe that was the last time. There may have been one more, but I'm thinking that was it. 

Last picture of Norbert and I - taken after his heart stopped.

Idk, a of it is blurry. He, along with McSkunker were/are my sons. When the ER asked if I lived with anybody I said yes, my 2 rats because they were that much my kids.

For those that don't know, Norbert picked me. I was working at a rat/mouse farm and we were doing the order the one day. We would grab armfuls of rats and then count them out into totes. I got to the last one and it was Norbert and he somehow worked his way down to my pinky finger and was holding onto it with his 2 little front paws - he was only about 4 weeks old then. 

When I had pet rats with an ex before I would put them down my shirt. None of the rats at the farm would go down there. However I decided to try with Norbert and he went with no qualms. From then on he began spending majority of my on the clock hours at the farm with him in my shirt.

When I left the farm I had to take Norbert with me. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving him, leaving him wondering if he would think he did something wrong. So, since you should never have just 1 rat, I picked out a buddy for him and tested if they would get along by putting McSkunker down my shirt while Norbert was in it. There was no fighting so I knew they would be good together.

So when I left the farm I got a Critter Nation cage to ensure that they couldn't escape and brought my two kids home. That was the very end of August 2017 that I brought them home. They were around 2 months old then at that point. Hard to guess ages when you deal with thousands of rats and mice.

Norbert helped me through having brain surgery and all the complications since 6 weeks post op. Plus he helped me through finding out that my ex was still a cheating POS like he was with at least 1 of his other exes.

Jan 27th was the 22 year anniversary of my dad escaping his hell on earth and when I took over his position in hell. For over a decade I've felt ok leading up to the anniversary. This year though - because brain surgery apparently makes people more emotional - I was more emotional about it. I don't know if Norbert was already sick or what happened. Just all the sudden I heard a sound I never heard before and my fear came true. I lost one of my sons, the son that picked me, that adopted me.

 

~ Note this post contains an affiliate link for the Critter Nation cage, meaning I potentially earn money if you shop through this link. ~