Content Notice for discussion of pet’s death, sudden death, cancer, grief.
As some of you might have known, either from following me on Twitter or reading my previous article, our hamster was getting on in life. Very sadly, in his last few months, he developed a lump on his chest. We took him to the vets as soon as possible to have it looked at but due to his age, the vet (and us) decided it wouldn’t be in his best interest to put him under the stress of surgery. We chose to carry out palliative care through the use of medication and keep him as comfortable as possible.
A few weeks after we made this decision, a friend of mine who I’ve known for a long time now came to me saying she needed to sell her hamster as she was moving and couldn’t take the hamster with her. I offered to take her in. She was the first dwarf hamster I ever owned, as I have only had Syrian’s my whole life, and my partner thought it would be good for us to rescue a hamster in need when we knew that Faolan probably didn’t have long left. When I lost my dog very suddenly a few years ago, I really struggled with the emptiness in the house and not having anything to positively focus my attention on. Obviously, we have Achilles but the thought of an empty cage lingering in our house made me feel so sad and the thought of being able to help another hamster in need (whilst not replacing Faolan) felt really good. We shared pictures of her on Twitter, held a naming poll and started buying materials to build her a DIY cage with lots more space.
Very sadly, we had to make the decision to put Faolan to sleep on Monday 5th March. The lump on his chest was clearly causing him a lot of difficulties as he was unable to properly groom himself, his interest in food and drink was dwindling, and he was sleeping 95% of the time. After speaking to the vet, we felt it would be the kindest thing to do to put him to sleep. I elected to stay with him while he was put to sleep as I didn’t want him to be alone and, needless to say, we were absolutely devastated.
Then, almost out of nowhere, our new hamster also passed away on Saturday night. I went to change her water, give her some food and check on her as, despite the time, she hadn’t gotten up yet which was very uncharacteristic of her. When I checked her bed she had passed away in her sleep. The grief of losing two pets in such quick succession, one of which was a complete shock as she was only 5 months old, really affected me.
Thankfully, I had made a very wise decision in the previous week to queue up some reviews which relieved a lot of pressure from having to worry about falling behind with blogging. I had to take the weekend off of work and have been spending most of my time sleeping, reading, hugging Achilles, playing video games and just trying to take some time to myself. I’m starting to feel a bit better so will be resuming blogging in the next few days, but felt it would be good to explain what’s been going on and dedicate some space to talking about it ❤
I know there’s no pressure for me to keep up with posting content or blogging but it’s something that has really helped me over the past year, along with all the great people I’ve met through doing so.
For any of you who read my first installment on 
Red Rocket Panda 