Goodbye little friend

I adopted Cupcake from a local breeder in September. I saw her cream-colored fur and little tan stripe and just fell in love. She was named after the vanilla cupcakes I was fond of making at the time.

Her sister and roommate Truffle is on the upper right of the same picture, but I didn’t know that I’d be adopting her yet.

Cupcake had a bit of a ferocity problem. Whenever I put my hand in the cage to do anything, she would come along and chomp on it. I’m still not sure why–she was hand-raised and I was never cruel to her. She mauled me a few times, but I didn’t mind.

Both sisters were diagnosed with diabetes when they were about five weeks old. I had completely rearranged their diets, forbade threats, and carefully picked all of the corn out of their sugar-free hamster mix. I gave them fenugreek powder and seeds, which are supposed to lower blood sugar. They’re such tiny creatures, the medications given to diabetic dogs and cats simply can’t work.

Recently she became blind. She didn’t groom very well, and she had the cutest rumpled fur. But over the last few weeks she became weaker and weaker, and I had to hand-feed her until she came back from two comatose spells. She hadn’t been doing well lately, and this morning I found her curled up dead in the front of the cage. She had been too weak to even make it to her nest.

Goodbye, soft little friend. Sometimes I wish there really were a hamster heaven so I could know there’s a place where you can be healthy and whole and have lots of hands to chomp on and peanuts to eat.