I’m sorry for your loss. I hope that you were able to get a photo or two to remember her by.
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Thanks. We got a few photos over the years. 
The final few photos we took of HH were:
(such a fancy stethoscope)
with the last being:
She seemed reasonably happy and comfortable in her final days, which made the loss the more shocking, though I’m very glad she wasn’t visibly suffering.
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We got the lab results back just now. She had lymphoma. Cancer is pretty common in hedgehogs as they age, alas.
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Oh, poor little lady. It is indeed fortunate that she appeared to have a minimal amount of discomfort before her little body gave out. What a hedgehog!
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I’d just heard the same thing not two days ago (I have a local friend who is currently hedgehogless but had them as her pet of choice, if not for you I’d have had no idea). She also said hers ‘lived fast, played hard, died adorably’. (exact quote)
We chatted about the princess some and now she’s got the bug again, so I might get to go hedgehogging with her.
If Madison, WI suddenly ends up becoming a hedgehog hub, you’re partially to blame!
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Ah, damn. If it were me I’d take some small comfort in knowing that it was nothing I did, and there was really nothing I could have done. Not that it’d make things any less shitty but for me it would take away some of the mystery and potential self-blame.
… well other than to blame cancer, because fuck cancer.
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My dog Danny and I are at the vet. Hopefully this is just one of his “routine” prostate infections and not something worse. (I know, I know. I got him when he was old already and sporting a heart murmur, so the vets weren’t crazy about getting him snipped.) Wish us well, will update later.
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I got news I didn’t want. Yes, he has an infection. But he also has a perineal hernia, which will require surgery. Expensive surgery. He’s 12 to 15 years old, with a heart murmur already. Got a consult scheduled for tomorrow which should give me more answers. But… the ballpark they gave me was $2400 to $3000 for the surgery. As much as I hate myself for saying it, that’s an awful lot of money to spend on a dog who’s that old. But he’s my baby… how can i not? I will know more tomorrow, after I drive an hour away for the consult. I’m… beyond words, really I am.
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I’m very sorry about this. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re crazy to spend this amount of money on your dog, and don’t feel guilty if you think you shouldn’t go through the surgery. Whatever decision you’ll make will be the best one for you and Danny.
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My middle-aged and currently heat-slowed brain prompted me to wait a bit to respond here.
Years ago, I heard this from a friend who was in the U.S. Navy, and I confess I see its appeal:
I don’t expect my own path toward becoming a healthier, saner (yes), more awakened human being to be everyone’s cup of tea, to mix metaphors. My off-the-boat-Chinese dad never once sought acupuncture from a TCM doctor, despite a lifetime of chronic pain and addiction, for all the 50 years I knew him. He was fine with taking an ever increasing pile of pills, sure, but no way was he going to get needles stuck all over him, esp. since, armed with with his PhD in Chemistry, he Just Knew Science Has All the Answers to Everything, Full Stop.
I get a lot of relief from allergies through diet, acupuncture and probiotics. My son’s asthma is nearly gone thanks to acupuncture–he stopped using his inhaler in 2013 after being on one sort or another since 2006. Go figure.
Your mileage may vary. If one modality doesn’t work for you, move on to something that does. I apologize for stating something this obvious and do not mean to insult your intelligence. No offense meant. And @japhroaig, please, no offense meant or glibness implied.
My early years were programmed by a narcissistic several-kinds-of-crazy (with a heapin’ side of heavy-corporal-punishment) dad and a suicidal Queen of Denial mom who did periodically have her good moments—I had a lot of brain code to debug and rewrite from YearMonthDay Zero onward. Once I got out of their house, I learned all I could from many positive teachers found in all kinds of unexpected places using wildly differing methods.
By the time I got to Austin, which has respectable density of… of… lovable eccentrics? Humans interested in bettering themselves through less orthodox means? Overeducated weirdos? Uniquely open-minded people with laudable goals and passions who teach by being living examples? Not sure this really encompasses what I’m attempting to quantify. Austin culture has made a lot of room for people who are unconventional and don’t fit in anywhere else in Texas. Austin is or at least has been, I daresay, fairly hospitable to happy mutants.
I believe my psychotherapist was allowed to practice for over 35 years because she was good at it. People who went to see her got the results they needed. Am I a perfect human being now, after my work with her? Nope. Do I make better choices? Yep. Do I know the difference now between the ramifications of various decisions? Yep. Do I spend a lot less time trying to spot unhealthy behavior in myself? Oh yes definitely. And sometimes I even try to do things differently. 
So… still working on myself. Debugging is, as programmers here will doubtless attest, an ongoing process. With each new piece I seek to make better in myself, a lot of cascading dependencies and pieces of script in my head conflict, crash, and invite closer inspection. I’m on V52.4 and I still have some really bad days. Sometimes bOINGbOING bbs is useful and helps me improve.
Peace.
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I’m sorry. I think he’s lucky to have you as his companion because I think you will try your hardest to do the best thing for him no matter what that is. I also agree with @subextraordinaire that you should trust your own judgment about how best to help Danny regardless of how much money it costs. I paid for a surgery for my rabbit with a credit card that increased her comfort and extended her life by a few years. It was not a “financially prudent” decision, and . . . I have never once regretted doing it.
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I have no likes to give, but am a huge fan of dry humor!
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Heartbreaking.
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I love that last picture of her with her teeth and inquisitive look about her. While I didn’t know her, she looks happy and like herself there. It’s a keeper of a picture.
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Don’t even start to begin to think I even for a moment thought about being offended. In the absolute simplest terms, the reason why pills work is because we have receptors for them. The reason we have receptors is to receive something we produce ourselves or consume in some way (not just eating by a long shot).
Acupuncture doesn’t really do anything for me a good massage doesn’t do, and I enjoy a good massage more. Reiki is more like positive affirmations than anything else, which makes me feel good. Plain Ol’ talk therapy has done wonders for my self esteem. And humbly acknowledging i can’t eat and drink like a twenty year old has made me feel physically and mentally stronger.
Oh, and a friend of mine gave me a luck dragon. I’ll be damned if that thing doesn’t work.
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Thank you all so much for your support and comments. It makes a difference and I appreciate it more than I can say. I’ve spent the night going back and forth between Googling details on the problem, the surgery, the recovery, and spending time with Danny. He got a bath in preparation for the consult tomorrow–and that was soooo much fun. He hates baths, and grooming. He struggled so much in the sink he broke off a nail. Then came the Battle of the Comb. (Cornering him on the front porch helped.) But eventually he was washed, and dried, and combed, and we spent a while relaxing, him comfy in my lap, all indignities forgiven.
I’m still scared down to my toes over tomorrow. But without the info the consult will provide I can’t make a choice. I desperately don’t want to lose him… but it’s about his best quality of life. (I also Googled “how to know when to let a dog go.” I cried, but it helped get my head a little more straight.) If he’s capable of surviving the surgery and having a good life afterwards, then we go for it. If he can’t… it won’t be good, but one step at a time. I’m not looking forward to the hour-long drive to an area I really don’t know… but my dog is worth it. 
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That sounds like an excellent plan. Best of luck tomorrow!
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Yeah we do.
Funny things, those receptors. Incredibly specialized for the various unique molecules human beings have been interacting with for a coupla hundred thousand years. Amazing what kinds of things we as a species have been busy chewing on, historically.
Dang.
Agree with you on massages, esp. the nearly brutal ones where muscles I didn’t know I had get reset.
Wot, you mean like Falcor?
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