You don’t get enough time. It’s dumb, because it’s unrealistic. I had an 8 year old guinea pig start to get poorly on me, and I just kept telling myself I could get another year out of her. That wasn’t fair to her, because we’d had a long full life together. She gave me two more months, and was on her way.
I already lost Ruby a few months ago, and it rubbed me the wrong way, because she was only 2 1/2 years old. Freak, sudden thing. I just found her one morning passed onward to the Rainbow Bridge. The kids thought it was odd because her mother is still alive.

Well…

Yesterday morning Potsticker would not come out and eat daily salad pile I always put out. I whistled for her to come out, and she didn’t respond. I pulled her out of hiding and put her right up to the salad pile, and she told me right away that she felt really yucky and just wanted to go lie down, so she quickly waddled away to a secluded part of the cage.

I get on the phone and call the local place, which is always full, and then the vet office in Fairfax, VA. I got her cage together and fetched her out of hiding and placed her in the cage. First, she ran to hide under the pile of hay, then eventually realized the cuddle sack would be more appropriate and buried herself in there. I didn’t see her again.

When I got to the office, they took the cage to the back for vitals, and found her temperature at 94.5 degrees fahrenheit. They kept her on the heating pad, trying to bring her back up to a respectable piggy temp. They gave her meds, sub-q fluids. They said she need to get her temperature up high enough to address the rest of her symptoms and get her into radiology. So, she was running cold, and having difficultly breathing, but wasn’t wheezy, crackling, or presenting with runny nose. She was downright crummy.

I left her with them, and got a call a few hours later that she didn’t make it.
If I want to know with certainty what she died from, it would be a minimum $200, and I have 9 other pets to take care of. Suspicions were either her heart, or something in her lungs like a mass or fluid (pneumonia).

She was going to turn 3 years old next month, and still her mother lives.

Love you.