Gerbil died at the vet!

[tascha]

Hi,

This morning my gerbil Yoshi died at the vets. Yesterday I took him and his buddy Gizmo (who has a teeth problem) to the vet to look at his tumor (I don't know if it was benign or vicious), the vet clipped it away but he started to bleed extremely. After some hrs the bleeding stopped, he was still alive but this morning he died. I am wondering if I did the right thim by taking him to the vet. I mean, gerbils are very hard to treat because they are very small and are very vulnarable. Maybe if I did not take him he was still alive. He did not seem to be sick and was eating and drinking. I feel guilty.

[taivas]

Hi
In general I´d say it´s always the right thing taking a gerbil to the vet if something is wrong. So, don´t worry. I think you did the right thing.
I only wonder if the vet did the right thing. He just clipped off the tumor? No surgery? That sounds strange to me.

Greatings,
sabine

[tascha]

Hi,

Thanks. The vet thought it was a wart (and looked like a wart of somekind) and therefore just clipped it of. He said that this was often done and that normally there are no complications. He did not suspect this either....

Greetz, Natascha

[pixytwinkle]

hi im really sorry about your gerbil
I also think it seems strange to just clip it off didnt the vet try and stop the bleeding by putting a few stitches in?

[tascha]

Yes, he did put in a few stitches. He tried very hard to save him. He also wanted to keep an eye on him, so he wathed over him at night. But he became very weak and died in the morning.

[AndreaS15]

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.
You did what you thought was right to help your litle friend, there's nothing wrong in that, you did what you did out of love to help your gerbil live a better life.

I have assistend with surgeries on rats many times, and yes it can be difficult, more so with gerbils since they are smaller. I personally will only consider surgery in a small rodent if it is youg, something is preventing them from getting around, or they are in pain.

I'm curiose on "how" the Vet removed this? I have this awful picture in my head of soemone actually cutting it right off. I know when we did a tumor removal we slice the skin open, and then carefully cut the tumor away from any tissue, there was never that much bleeding and we stitched/glued the opening up. Maybe your gerbils tumor was in a hard spot?

Also has this Vet ever worked on gerbils/rodents before? I feel it is very important to have a Vet that KNOWS small animals, not many do unfortunetly, so it's hard to find one who knows how to properly care from a rodent.

<hugs> Again, sorry for your loss, it's hard to loose out little buddies