BE KIND TO HAMSTERS Do not permit your hamster's tumours to grow so big that it becomes hard to operate as there is insufficient skin to stitch the wound after removal of the tumour.

I advised surgery as there was no other option to treat this case. It could be a blood-type of tumour. But it was most likely an abscess which was a large collection of yellow dirty pus. The body immune system could not cope with the infectious bacteria and the pus kept being produced daily.      

"Your hamster is in a poor condition, being skinny and dehydrated. He may die on the operating table under anaesthesia" I explained. Hamsters are usually operated on the spot, without the means to check their health status by taking body temperature and doing a blood test as in human or dog medicine.  

I was not keen on being the second vet whom Mrs Chin who kept several hamsters, would say to her friends that  her hamster had died on the operating table under Dr Sing. 

It was a no win situation. If I did not operate, the hamster would die painfully as he could not eat or drink from the plate since the globular swelling in his chest was much bigger than his head size. This mass elevated him from the plate level.  He was not taught to drink from the bottle nipple. 

If I operated, the poor conditioned hamster has a 70% chance of dying which was not a good gamble on my reputation. 

So why not let the hamster live the last few weeks of its natural life?    

But, would this two-and-a-half years old hamster survive longer since he had become emaciated and distressed?

He was very uncomfortable and in pain daily. Being unable to close his eyes even for a second. I pressed his upper and lower eye lids together and they would not close as the eyeballs were popping out. That gave the impression he has such beautiful big black eyes. He was suffering. Mrs Chin ruled out any possibility of euthanasia to prevent further pain. A humane solution. 

The friction on the wood shavings had rubbed off the hair on the base of this swelling making it as shiny as an older man's balding head. 

This dwarf hamster looked young but he had lost weight as he had a tumour on his left nose too, completely obstructing his left nostril. He could breathe only through the right nostril. He would have problem breathing normally. Given the anaesthetic gas and would die of respiratory failure. I would not even want to operate on a hamster with such disadvantages. All owners and veterinarians want a live hamster after anaesthesia and surgery. 

The veterinarian with a dead hamster on the operating table would not be given a second chance to perform surgery on another hamster of Mrs Chin.    

The pale pink tumour with dark red bleeding spots at one end of his nose had enlarged and elongated to around 1 cm in length.  At first sight, I thought this was a new breed of dwarf hamster. A piggy hamster because his nose was elongated and looked like a pig snout. 

"I can't decide now," Mrs Chin said. "The risk of him dying is so great." This was one instance I felt so relieved that I did not need to do surgery as Mrs Chin went home with a hamster she loved a lot.  

Two days later, Mrs Chin decided on the operation at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning. The hamster had eaten overnight but had great difficulty in swallowing. 

I could not say no. Mr Chin, a serious looking and thin man said, "Doc, please stitch up the operated area of my hamster even if he died during operation." He must have great love for this little creature.  

This was a tricky anaesthetic case as the hamster could only breathe in through one normal nostril. A risky one. How long should he be under the anaesthetic gas?

Should I give him one minute of gas or should it be double the time since he could only breathe in through one nostril. The left nostril was crushed by a big tumour. 

I put him inside the gas container. He had great difficulty in breathing as his chest expanded and contracted vigorously unlike other hamsters.  Would his heart fail now?

If the anaesthetic gas was insufficient, he would  struggle and I would not be able to empty all the dirty red brownish pus of the swollen chest. 

The hamster was breathing hard, more like panting and his heart beat was probably four hundred per minute. The anaesthetic gas filtered into his nostrils, past his throat and into the lungs in this gasping hamster. Would he die of heart failure?  

In the dog and cat, I could use an endotracheal tube which would be inserted into his mouth, into the throat and then into the windpipe. Anaesthetic gas would then be breathed in and I could control the amount sufficient to knock him down without killing him. Now, this direct breathing of gas from the cotton wool was risky. Very risky. But this hamster's heart was strong.   

I used the scalpel to incise the skin. There was another fibrous layer underneath. It seemed that the body had walled off the dirty red abscess. Sero-sanguineous or plainly, a thick dirty reddish brown exudate oozed out from the wound. I pressed the mass and squeezed out 2 ml of pus. I extracted the stringy mass of yellow tissue with my forceps after emptying the sac.  I pressed more to discharge more pus. The big lump just deflated like a pierced balloon and a tough skin tissue enveloped the front of the chest. I did not want to cut away the excess skin and stitch up as this could be traumatic and kill the hamster.  

In any case, the hamster moved and used his hands to grasp the forceps as I tied the second of two absorbable stitch to close up the drainage incision. 

Veterinary books recommend not to stitch an incised abscess as there would be more leftover pus to drain out.  This would be all right in the bigger animal like the cat. 

However, this hamster might tear out the wound as the remnants of the pus oozed out, licked away all toxic discharge. Being so small, if he had licked just a few drops of the toxins, he might die the next few days and this would be upsetting to all. 

I decided to stitching up the cut area of the wound which was around 5mm long.

I used warm water to wash away the dirty blood. I dried the wet body with tissue paper. Mrs Chin would have to use tissue paper as bedding rather than wood shavings. I gave it an antibiotic and dextrose saline injection to kill the bacteria and to rehydrate the hamster. The hamster would have some antibiotics by mouth for the next three days.

He looked vigorous and was mobile within 5 minutes at the end of anaesthesia. I checked his eye reflex by touching his eye lids. At least he could close his eyes now.  I phoned Mrs Chin to pick him up and nurse him at home.  

Eleven hours after surgery, I phoned to find out if the hamster was recovering well, fearing the worst.  It was better not to know. 

This hamster was a survivor. Mr Chin said that the hamster drank lots of water and was now eating. Well, the dehydration must be severe.    

 "Doc, how about removing his nose tumour?" Mrs Chin asked a few days later.

BE KIND TO HAMSTERS Do not permit your hamster's tumours to grow so big that it becomes hard to operate as there is insufficient skin to stitch the wound after removal of the tumour.

"No," I replied. "There will be a big hole after surgery as I have no skin on the nose to stitching up after cutting off the tumour. The wound would be infected and the hamster would then stop eating. If his nose became too irritating, I would give him some medication." 

This was one operation that I would not do as this hamster would not live long with an infected and itchy open nose wound. There are some surgeries which are best not done. Besides he was nearing the end of his life span. Hamsters live around 2.5 years and this chap would not survive another anaesthesia and surgery. Let him spend some time with his owners in his last days. So I did not operate.  

No veterinarian wants a dead hamster on the operating table as deaths are very distressful both to the owner and the veterinarian and his staff.

BE KIND TO HAMSTERS. Get your vet to remove their tumours when they are small in size rather than hope that these tumours will go away.