22 July 2004 ... Tess, Yet Again

The Tess Update... um. hm. Maybe we need to start with a Tess Timeline, instead, since I've not written in ages!

At the beginning of this month, Tess got a head tilt. I took her to the vet right away and Dr. B. said it's not an ear infection but some kind of brain thing. Maybe an infection, maybe a tumor, maybe whatever. I decided to skip the tests and take home some extra-special antibiotic since the only thing that was actually treatable from all those maybes was a bacterial brain infection.

Two weeks of antibiotic, had no effect on her head tilt, and the med upset her tummy so much that she quit eating. Also, about half way through, she started squinting her eye a little.

I quit the antibiotic last weekend. She started eating like she was starving to death. And she's talking and running around and just ever so happy. And her eye got worse so we're back to the vet to see what's going on.

I talked with a different doc this time, Dr. A. He talked about Tess's head tilt, and his opinion was that her head tilt was the result of brain damage from bacterial encephalitis (brain infection). Because I was able to start the special antibiotic so quickly, Tess doesn't show any other neurological problems.

And since she is squinting her eye, and doesn't have a droopy eye, her eye problem is just a coincidence... It's not related to her head tilt, and some eye drops will help her eye get better!

Her head tilt and off-balance-ness is permanent. Tess, the disabled guinea pig. oh well. All that matters is that she's happy... and that she definitely is!