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Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Doodlebop
Current mood: cheerful
Doodlebop,The Lucky Fish
Doodlebop and Pregnancy Hormones
Doodlebop's Lucky Day
All of which would have been very good titles for this blog.
Poor Doodlebop. He has been our very devoted (and previously healthy) goldfish. Nick's pet- not that Nick pays much attention to him, but I do. Nick would like to feed him daily, though I refuse because he often tries to feed Doodle way too much. DB, as I call him happily each morning, has been a lone survivor. We have previously had around 5 other goldfish. Each one dies within a week or two, typical I suppose of feeder goldfish. But, DB is different. He has lasted, managed to tough out living in the Reder home. We have now had him several months.
To get to the point, Doodlebop got sick about a week ago. He has been laying in the bottom of the tank, looking quite sickly. He was not eating, was not swimming.....not much acting like the Doodlebop we know. I figured the tragic end was near and told Nicholas that I felt DB was sick and not doing too well. I know that feeder goldfish do not often last very long, but I have grown attached to DB and really wanted to help him. His water was very dirty and really needed a good changing. Removing DB would put quite a bit of stress on him, so I decided against changing the water for many days. But, DB lived. Every morning I went in to Nick's room and DB was still alive. Day after day, still hanging in there, but barely.
Finally, after allowing my "mommy hormones" to kick in and worrying all night if I was doing the right thing, I talked to Rick about it. He laughed, told me how much he loved me, and asked me why I was worrying so much over a 42 cent goldfish. I am not typically one who worries about the feelings of fish much. I do not often catch myself thinking of how a lobster felt when it was being cooked for my dinner (not that I eat lobster that often). I do not worry about the feelings of trees when they are cut down, etc. Actually, now that I am on the subject, I do think about my houseplants and notice immediately when they are not looking so hot.
I know, all of this hubbub about Doodlebop sounds silly. But I was really bothered by this. I knew the probable reason for his illness/potential death and I was not doing anything to prevent it. I was just sitting idly by waiting for DB to be floating belly up. But, would he be strong enough to live either way? Well, finally last night, I went into Nick's room after he was asleep. Doodle was swimming around the tank. Slowly swimming was more than I had seen from him in a week.
That was it....I knew I wanted to change the water. So, at 10PM with Nicholas asleep less than 10 feet away, I changed Doodlebop's water. I even prayed for Doodle (as ridiculous as that sounds). Worse case scenario was that DB would die a little more quickly. He was dying slowly anyway.
Well, Doodlebop is now swimming around wildly and almost back to himself. After changing the water, fish often die within a couple of days. But at this point, if Doodlebop does die, he will die a much much happier fish. And I did my motherly duty, doing all that I could even if I wasn't sure of the outcome. Now, you can't wipe the smile off of my face every time I glance over at the happy and lucky fish we call Doodle.
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