Baby in the House

My MRI experience, with the help of a milligram of ativan, was good. The nurse giving me the contrast dye used a 25 gauge needle, no digging around in my arm with the knitting needles this time. Smooth as butter, this gal. I barely felt it. Kept wondering when she was going to start. The ativan made me a little sleepy and a little loopy, just enough that when they started sliding the table I was bound to into the long MRI chamber, I didn't even flinch. Just thought, "ok, here we go." Ativan is an anti-anxiety drug that I used during chemo for nausea and to put me out on chemo nights. And this small amount that I had left was just perfect to kill the anxiety that kept me up all night. In fact, when we got home, my mom watched Jackson and I slept for most of the day. Combination of the drug and the lack of sleep the night before.

Course I may not sleep tonight on account of I have a newborn in the house. Yup. I found a baby on our family walk this evening. He's a newborn squirrel, so newborn we weren't even sure what the hell he was. Just his pink hairless guy on the sidewalk. David and Jackson and I were all standing there staring at him when he kind of flinched and rolled over, proving he was not yet dead. His movement really startled Jackson who probably saw him as some pink hairless villain from Spongebob or one of those other freaky Nickelodeon cartoons. Jackson started screaming and crying and jumped into David's arms and demanded we get away from there. So we went, but I couldn't stop seeing him lying there with the ants circling.

So when we got home I googled newborn squirrel and confirmed his species and read that the mother would reclaim him unless he was too cold. She wouldn't even care if he smelled like humans as long as he was still warm. So I went back for him to see if I could warm him up and put him in a box for his mom to find him. We alerted the people who lived there about the box and the baby squirrel and I went to check on him twice - still there. The sites I was looking at said don't leave him overnight, she won't get him after dark but predators would. So I brought him home and put a warm pack in his box, gave him a tiny bit of pedialyte like the rescue site said and I will keep him till morning.

Not sure what to do then. I can either go back to his tree and try to get his mom to come get him, which would mean hanging out there to watch in the distance so that a cat doesn't get him and that he doesn't get too cold. Or I can call the wildlife rescue people in Austin in the morning and see if they will let me take him in. It says the cost of rehabbing a squirrel is $35. I am not sure if this means they will take him if I give them $35, but I will certainly write them a check.

I just want him to be ok. I wish his mom would find him, but I don't know if that is gonna happen now. Some might say I should have just left him alone in the first place, but when I first went back to check out the situation I noticed that he had siblings. Near where I found him were two more. Except these two were covered completely in ant mountains and were decimated. He was lucky he fell near the grass, the others fell in the street. I just couldn't walk away.

Now if I can keep him safe from the cats tonight and get him to his mom or the wildlife people tomorrow, we can call him rescued. I think probably the wildlife people, because I can't sit in front of someone else's house down the block for several hours, with Jackson, to watch for his mom, who may or may not come. Sigh. Decisions.