Ok, so I’m back home writing this with my guinea pig sat on my lap. She’s a gorgeous thing but she isn’t half getting on in years. The reason she’s on my lap is cos I’ve just applied ointment to her foot. I guess I should start at the beginning though…

Went into uni today to find that we had a set task to do, which was to watch some video clips and then in the half hour that followed sort out a 5 minute presentation on negotiation using said clips. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s presentations but I guess I didn’t do too badly…

I finished earlier than expected and so found myself at Leeds Train Station with over an hour to wait for my train. Right, so nothing particularly interesting happened during said hour and neither did it on the train journey home, just your usual gabby woman on the phone and the idiot who had his crap music played too loud, though fun japes were had with Kirsty over text; that was fun.

So yes, I come home, say hello to family members then head outside to where madam’s situated and pick her up to give her a cuddle and I noticed that one of her front paws is bloody and inflamed. To be honest it looks like she’s done it herself and bitten a chunk out of it through boredom or something. She’s done something similar before in that she’s bitten bits of her fur off but nothing this bad. Dye her fur black and she probably wouldn’t look out of place at a My Chemical Romance concert.

Anyway, we phoned the vet surgery up and luckily they had an appointment available tonight so we took her there, where she was cooed over by many people. The vet was difficult to understand due to being foreign - Dad reckons he was Dutch - but we caught the gist of it.

Essentially it’s serious because it’s already become infected. She was given two steroid injections to reduce the swelling and has been given a collar to prevent further biting. We’ve also been given a steroid cream to put on the wound twice a day, which has fallen to me to do because I’m not squeamish like my mum, and a some antibiotics to feed her once a day.

She’s going back Tuesday morning for a check- up but the vet said if there’s been no change then it’d have to be amputated. However, we’ve decided, that given her age, it’s not fair on her to have to cope with amputation and it’d be too much of a shock to her system, so if it comes to that then we’re looking at getting her put down instead because it seems kinder.

I really hope she makes it though, she’s our last guinea pig and I love her to bits but she’s definitely not well.

Anyway, to prove there’s nothing cuter than a guinea pig in a collar: