Octuplets

On Monday the 26th of January eight babies born to a mother in southern California are stable. The six boys and two girls were delivered within five minutes of each other at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Centre in Los Angeles. The babies, born nine weeks prematurely, weighed between 1lb, 8oz and 3lb, 4oz, so tiny and precious. They are only the second case of octuplets surviving more than a few hours.

The first live-born octuplets were born in Houston to Nigerian parents in 1998, and one baby died about a week later. The surviving siblings celebrated their 10th birthday in December.



Two of the new babies were put on ventilators at first but Dr Mandhir Gupta confirmed they were now all breathing unaided. Gupta said: "Only three babies need some sort of oxygen through the nose right now but they are breathing on their own." Doctors, and the team of 46 who performed a Caesarean section to deliver the babies, had repeatedly conducted practice sessions in anticipation of seven deliveries. They were not expecting an eighth baby, what a nice surprise!



On Tuesday 27th of January five of the babies began bottle-feeding followed by the other three babies on Wednesday 28th. Today all 8 babies are doing well and feeding on their own, their mother has already begun pumping breast milk for them in anticipation of 8 hungry mouths.

How exciting that modern medicine has been able to help support and care for this amazing new family, I wish the very best to their parents in the next few weeks, which I don’t doubt is going to be a very a trying time for them both.

Mr Toffee's troubles concluded

Claire our local vet checked his teeth, which are fine as well as removing the lump and fixing the wound with 6 stitches. The lump has been sent of to be tested for malignant of benign cells.

Here is a photo 12 days after the surgery:

As you can see Mr Toffee is well on the mend now, the bruising is fading the wound is nearly healed. I'm very glad to report he is back to his old self, eating properly and running in his wheel. I think the whole ordeal has made him more appreciative of me and home, a few days ago he fell asleep on my lap (out in the open, he usually hides somewhere for a nap) while I rubbed behind his ear, like a cat lol I hope this is the case as he has seemed to be very well behaved...for example when I clipped his nails, he only pulled his foot away once and didn't huff at all - which very rare especially when clipping nails!!

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Eat Better Move More

The Change4Life advertising campaign began on 3 January 2009 – on TV, in the press, on billboards and online. Apparently it has cost £50m to fund this campaign, the society wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and move more.

The colourful stop motion adverts are fun to watch and do a great job about getting their message across, I’m sure they will be a great hit especially with kids and younger families. I just find it slightly odd that we – The government and the UK tax payer - can spend so much on essentially just an advert when schools are selling off playing fields to housing developers to support their own development.

As well loss of playing fields in the schools, community and youth groups are suffering too. Insurance costs are getting ever higher for private groups so there will be far fewer sports events, scout swimming galas and five-a-side football tournaments than ever before.

Anyone else think this is odd?

Mr Toffee's troubles

Mr Toffee my 3 year old male African pygmy hedgehog developed a fatty lump on his shoulder/behind his ear just before Christmas, he had some swelling and has also been behaving a bit strangely and not eating or running in his wheel as much as usual. My local vet - Claire - removed pus and gave him some antibiotics as it was slightly infected. Over the next week the bruising did go down but some swelling on the back of his neck increased and the lump returned.



This photo also shows the swelling on his chest and around his legs but doesn't show the swelling across the back of his neck. Claire our vet referred Mr Toffee to a specialist exotic vet in Warick and we found out the cause of Mr T's troubles....he is fat >_<> It was a surprise to me as he can still roll into a tight ball, which apparently means he is trim. How wrong! He weighs 682 grams, the average for a male his age is 500-600grams. I'm going to change his diet to one much lower in fat and no worms till he reaches his target of 580grams!

The specialist vet suggested a lot of expensive treatments for my middle aged hog, worrisomely the bill will nearly reach £400 . After seeking advice from our local vet, she Claire is going to remove the lump on Tuesday and send it off for testing for malignant or benign cells. She will also check his teeth and clean them if necessary and she'll do it all for a fraction of the price. Of course money is not the object, I'm glad our local vet can treat him, but it sure helps!

Everyone suffers from post christmas flubber and most try out a new years resolution healthy eating/diet plan, Mr Toffee is no exception

ps did you know Mr Toffee is the human equivalent of 53 years old?

Brillo the hedgehog

Brillo the hedgehog enjoys a carrot

This is the cutest thing ever; hedgehogs can have a very varied diet, including carrot, egg, minced beef chicken and peas. In fact they can eat most fruit and veg. And not forgetting the obvious bugs, fresh crickets and meal worms, hmmm yummy! I wish Mr Toffee would eat anything other than cat food but he's a fussy old man and set in his ways! He does like his worms though, he has a few as a treat, what self respecting hog would turn his nose up at meal worms ;)

My own pet hedgehog Mr Toffee: