Terry was friends with everyone - she could be found curled up on a shelf with any of her YRB sisters or hanging out with Bonnie, her buddy. She didn't mind being around humans too much, but she truly preferred being with her own kind. She loved treats and would be first in line with her big, pleading eyes when the yogurt drops were being passed out. She was very playful, too. She liked to play chase with the other girls, zooming around the bedroom floor with her funny, hoppy run.
Terry was bigger than most of the other YRB girls and seemed healthier. We'd had her and her sisters nearly a year when we moved to our new house. Everyone came through the trip with flying colors - it was only later that we realized how stressful moving had been for all the rats. (Imagine a car full of traveling cages containing nine rats, plus a cooler containing Shorty's and Jewel's frozen bodies - thank goodness we weren't pulled over!) We moved in the summer to a house that was only about an hour's drive away, so it wasn't too bad. We left early in the morning, used the car's air conditioning and gave everyone cucumbers and fruit to eat during the trip. Unfortunately, Terry showed the stress a week or so later when she began to have increasingly bad attacks of myco.
We managed to get her stabilized for a while, but then she developed pneumonia. She would panic when she had difficulty breathing, which made it worse. I learned to listen for her cage top banging, which was how she signaled me when she needed some air. When she had bad attacks, I would take her into the bathroom and run the shower on hot to steam her lungs. I added eucalyptus or tea tree essential oil, which also seemed to help. This worked for a while, but one day she just couldn't stop gasping. She had become thin and tired, and I knew this was her last episode. I took her outside where I figured the humidity in the air would help her breathe.
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