I bought Summit as a buddy for Shade. Summit was a mismarked black Berkshire.  She got her name because she loved to be up high; even if it meant climbing on top of a person's head!  One of her favorite places to sit was on top of my books in my bookshelf. She loved to get out and explore, and she was a notorious "food hoarder". She loved to sleep inside my shirt, after the first few minutes of scratching me to pieces. She had a problem with mycoplasmosis, a respiratory disease that's all too common in rats. She sneezed, she wheezed, and generally was fairly sickly. Too many people mistake these noises for the rat "talking", but they are in fact symptoms of an incurable disease that will eventually get the best of them. It's not normal, and not healthy, and it eventually did catch up to her. She kept getting worse and worse, and though I put her on medications to try and help, she began to be reclusive and she lost weight. One day, I woke up to find her with a head tilt. She was the first rat I had ever had with this, though I had heard of it. It was scary, her head tilted crazily to one side and if nothing held her still she rolled on her side incredibly quickly and uncontrollably until she was stopped. I took her to the vet ASAP, and the vet thought it was a tumor in her brain. I didn't agree, but he was fairly sure so he gave her an anti-inflamatory injection to hopefully ease the discomfort. But as soon as I got home, literally, Summit got suddenly slower and slower, and didn't even roll. This seemed a little strange. Minutes later, she died in my arms. It was heartbreaking, she was the first rat I had been with at death. I was absolutely miserable, and felt so helpless. I had done all I could.

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