Today we had to put this little guy to sleep. Benjamin and I were a blubbery mess at the vet's office. Seems a little silly given what a grouch of a pet Nico was, but the last week he's let us hold and cuddle and pet (which was a big reason we knew something was wrong) him. We had to spoon feed him mushed up food and give him pedialyte from a syringe just to keep him going these last several days. But he was ready to go. The Vet was very kind and even pulled out a college textbook dealing with veterinary care of hedgehogs to show us that Nico had lived a long and full life and that all his symptoms were pointing to a brain tumor. Just seeing how much he's declined in the past week and knowing that were it not for us, he would have just stopped eating and crawled into his little sleeping bag to die made me realize that it was okay for us to let go.
On a lighter side, while Benjamin was sobbing he said, "We need comfort food. We need frozen yogurt right now!" (The kids are very into a little local froyo bar and keep trying to come up with excuses for why we need to go there.) And so we did afterwards. We took Nico in with us, too, in his shoe box. It was too hot to leave him in the car, deceased or not. Don't tell the health inspectors...
And now Nico and his little sleeping bag are buried in the back yard amongst the ivy that he loved far too well and would try to run away and hide in every time I took him out to garden with me.
Rest In Peace, Nico. May your heaven be filled with meal worms.
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