Alfie - Full Write-Up
Arrival and Early Life:
Alfie and Arthur arrived in our care as two young bucks who were no longer wanted due to their child becoming fearful of the pair as they grew larger.
Alfie had a crazy packed life! Originally, he and Arthur were bonded to Rowan, Travis, and Trevor. The quintet were a happy mischief, but Alfie and Arthur were the ones in charge - despite being the youngest.
By the time Alfie and Arthur were reaching maturity, they had started to develop hormonal aggression.
After putting it off for several weeks, we decided both brothers would benefit from castration. They were fighting with each other and causing mostly superficial trauma, but they had developed some post-traumatic abscesses.
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After being neutered, the boy's behaviour massively improved. In fact, we decided to bond them to our mischief of does.
Billy, the hairless rat, was suffering from a reoccurring facial abscess.
TIA and Ischaemic Strokes:
Sadly, Alfie suffered from a transient ischaemic attack (TIA) - also known as a mini-stroke. Symptoms usually subside within a 24hr period, but a TIA can be a warning that a stroke may occur.
Unfortunately, Alfie did suffer an ischaemic stroke. As the name suggests, they're the result of ischaemia; inadequate blood supply to an organ, or part of the body. Without advanced imaging, it would be impossible to definitively diagnose, but if we were to guess, we'd say it was an ischaemic stroke known as a thrombotic stroke. Thrombotic strokes occur when a thrombus (blood clot) forms in an artery which supplies blood to the brain. The thrombus can occur due to fatty deposits building up in the arteries - reducing blood flow.
Alfie was left with a mild case of 'star-gazing syndrome'; typically occurring because of a disease or injury which inhibits normal function of the central nervous system (CNS). It describes the abnormal behaviour which causes an animal to gaze upwards (towards the stars), with severe cases causing an animal to do backflips and/or fall over.
The difference between star-gazing compared to simply gazing upwards is that star-gazing is an involuntary behaviour - the animal has no control in doing so.
The stroke also caused mild unilateral non-painful glaucoma, a deterioration in vision in the affected eye, poor balance, muscle weakness, dizziness, and difficulty with coordination. Sometimes, symptoms of a stroke can improve with time.
Alfie was introduced to subcutaneous dexamethasone bisodium phosphate injections to hopefully improve some of his neurological symptoms. We carefully monitored him over the following weeks as a second stroke may have occurred.
Second Stroke:
Alfie's second stroke caused catastrophic head-pain (his grimace scale was severe across the board), paralysis, and extreme lethargy. As already mentioned, with some strokes you can see improvements. Alfie was rapidly worsening, and we were certain he'd continue to have more strokes. Given his symptoms, another stroke would've likely induced a coma or death.
We believed the kindest thing for Alfie was humane euthanasia.
Alfie passed away on the 1st of October 2019.
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