So, around two years ago I posted a blog about my excitement in adopting a hedgehog. She was called Demi, a name that we did not choose for her, but one that fit her personality well. We simply added "the puff" to the name and she then known as Demi (the puff). We got her from a small animal rescue in February 2014. She was a chubby little ball of spikes, but when I picked her up for the first time she immediately unraveled to say hello to her new mama. She had the cutest light brown and dark brown face and quills. Her nose was alwasys sniffing this smell and that smell. When she would find a smell she especially liked she would start annointing in the amazing smell. Ever see a hedgehog with rabies? That's what an annointing hedgehog looks like before they lick that white stuff on their quills. It was gross and cute at the same time.

Charles and I brought her home and helped her settle in to her new cage and new enviornment. We took her out for playtime every night, after we tortured her by putting antifungal medication on her ears for wood fungus. I always listened when I went to bed to hear her running on her wheel and eating her food...the gluton. She loved her food so much we had to put her on a diet and she was so much of a diva she decided she was too good for hard cat food, she wanted it soaked. Still, despite our bedroom being a constant 73 degrees F, daily baths, and uncomfortable nail trimming sessions we loved her so much.

Demi loved to sit on her daddy's shoulder while he was on the computer and hide under his beard while he was reading in bed. Me? Well she loved to poop on me, so much so that I was dubbed her poppy spot. Even though i was her poopy spot I still loved the little puff ball. She liked sleeping in her snuggle sack in my lap, or crawling into my sweatshirt to keep warm.

One of my favorite memories was her first adventure outside. It was a beautiful spring day out and we let her roam the backyard. We kept an eye on her of course, she was so inquisitive. She smelled everything and scurried along as fast as she could on her tiny legs.

It's sad to think that just a month ago, we had no idea any of this was gonna happen. We took her into the vet because she had a bubble under her eye. Vet said no big deal and sent us home. The following week, we took her back because she was urinating blood. Vet put her on an antibiotic, warning us that she may need a hysterectomy if the problem persists. The following week we were going to Florida, so we left Demi and her antibiotics with Charles' family. She stopped peeing blood while she was with them, and when we came home she showed me she missed me by annointing in the scent from my hand.

A few days later, she began to pee blood again, so I called the vet and scheduled her hysterctomy. This is where things go wrong. I thought they were going to do the surgery and she would be back no problem. That didn't happen, I got a call from the vet not once but twice. The first was to tell me that she had a large cyst in her uterus and it would be removed with the planned surgery. The second call was to tell me that when the vet opened her up he found cancer had invaded her uterus, her ovaries, and looked to be spreading. The vet said he would try to get most of the cancer if that's what I wanted. I wish at that moment I would have known what the next few weeks would be like, and I wish the vet had thrown this option on the table at that moment. If I had known, I would have put her to sleep that day and prevented her suffering. When the vet called after the surgery, he mentioned how he would have put her to sleep, and that he knew he didn't get all of the cancer. He said that we could pick her up and that her life expectancy was anywhere from a week to a year.

We picked her up from the vet, and she was out of it from the anesthetic, but she was back with us for however long she would allow. Over the next few days she didn't eat, so we brought her back to the vet for an IV drip to hydrate her and help her healing. That day we also started to syringe feed her her food. Though at that time, I'm pretty sure the consistancy of her food wasn't right. Still, we carried on and she appeared to get her strength back. She started moving around, and drinking. She was definately peeing and pooing lol. The vet would call every morning to check up on her, we would tell them how much she ate, if she did her buisness that night. Every day they were glad to hear she was doing better.

Last night I drove to work, under the impression that it would be like any other night. It didn't turn out like that. Charles called me around 11:45pm to tell me he didn't think Demi would last the night. My heart broke, I was on an overnight and I wouldn't be home til 9am and by then it would probably be too late. I was fighting the voices in my head that were fighting to go home or stay at work. In the end, the desire to hold her and tell her I loved her one last time was stronger then my desire to stay at my job for the night. I got home around 2am and took her out of her cage. I layed with her on the bed, watching her sniff and crawl around. I could tell how miserable she was, she could only manage a step or two before she would lay down for a while. I told Charles that if she somehow made it through the night we would take her to be put down the following morning. We both kissed her and held her and loved her and then put her to bed for the night. I fell asleep on the couch.

When I finally crawled into bed around 5:30am, she was laying outside her igloo. But she was still warm, I'm not sure, even now if she was still alive at that moment. Either way i pet her quills and crawled into bed. When I woke up again at 10:30am, she was gone. She was in full rigor mortus and I could see the last moment of her life on her face and it broke me in half. It wasn't the peaceful face of a creature who had passed in their sleep, it was the face of something, that in its last moments was in pain. And I did that to her, I kept her alive when she should have died peacefully in her sleep. I keep seeing that face in my head and I hate myself. Maybe thats's why Ive been so inconsolable today...guilt.

I wrapped her in her favorite blanket and put her in a box. Charles held me til I stopped crying the first time, and I told him that I wanted to bury her under the lilac tree at my parents house ; the resting place of all the small animals I've ever had. It took me a while to get up, and get motivated to do anything today. Eventually I got up and took a shower, eventually I called the vet and the lady I adopted her from, and eventually we left to lay her in the ground and say our final goodbyes. We got to my parents house and Charles dug a nice hole in the ground and we laid her to rest. I covered her over with a big square brick to assure predators wouldn't dig her up in the night, then cried as I walked into the house to seek comfort from my cat.

Charles did his best to try to make me laugh. He took me to the mall and we had some cheap dinner and did some window shopping. I decided on the way home I wanted to buy a scrapbook for Demi, so we stopped at Michaels on the way home and I picked up some supplies. When we got home I forced myself to disassemble her cage, and clean all her belongings. I cried the whole time. When I got myself under control I pulled out my laptop and moved all the pictures I had of her to a folder, so I could scrapbook them. Amazingly enough seeing them didn't make me cry, but smile and laugh. She was such a good girl.

As I sit here typing this I'm filled with guilt, and regret. I'm second guessing everything I've done in the last few months reguarding her. What if I'd have gotten her to the vet sooner? Why didn't I spend more time with her? Why did I let her suffer the last few weeks of her life instead of putting her to sleep? I just keep blaming myself, feeling like I made all the wrong calls. I should have done better by her. Most of all I'm so broken hearted, she was under 4 years old. Still young, ok, middle aged. All this could have been prevented if she was fixed when her original breeder decided not to breed her. Or if I would have known to do it when I got her.

Demi, I love you. I miss you. I'm sorry.