A rat like a balloon

Annabel is dying, I think.

She has been fat for a long time, but that's normal for a middle-aged rat, especially one as greedy as she is. At the end of last week the fatness seemed to have collected itself into a dangling paunch, and I wondered if it might not be a tumour; but there was no hard mass to be felt. By Friday her flanks had begun to hollow out and her belly was spherical, but it was too late to get her to the vet by then for a second opinion.

Now I think there's no doubt about it — although her body still feels squishy rather than tumourous — whatever it is, it's swelling visibly day by day as she gets thinner elsewhere, and she can barely lever herself out of the cage now. She certainly can't manage the rope down to the floor, and she looks grotesque; a rat blown up like a balloon, with squinting half-blind eyes. If I take her to the vet in this state, he will simply insist on having her put down.

The thing is obviously growing very fast indeed, and I don't see how she can live much longer in any case. But she doesn't seem to be in any pain, and she is as unpleasant-natured and as greedy as ever — trust Annabel to work out that she can use her increased bulk to block the other two from getting to any food that's going! At the moment I feel she's entitled to it.

If this goes on much longer I'm going to have to give her a wash though, which she hates; she can't groom properly any more, and she's starting to smell a bit off. Unless it's the disease.