Friday, May 9, 2008

Goldfish

A few days ago my goldfish jumped out of the fish tank and fell onto the floor. Since then we put it into a separate tank and have been keeping an eye on it. It can not swim anymore and it appears to be fully conscious. We feed it a goldfish flake every feed but it appears that it vomits it back out as a greenish substance. At the time of this post the goldfish is still wriggling on its lateral side, constantly staring at its environment.

However, since its fall, my mum believes that it has improved a bit of movement especially with its dorsal fins. Because it is able to move its fins and its tail, I believe there is no neurological damage. However, I do suspect it's bone is fractured causing it immense pain and immobility.

Right now, there's 3 options.
a) we end the fish's suffering by giving it a quick and painless death. How I do not know. But it seems to be making progress so I think its kinda irrational to do so.
b) we take it to the vet. We do not have that kind of money so it's not viable.
c) we keep monitoring it the way we are at the moment. This seems the most feasible.

Seeing the fish reminds me of a patient under critical condition. It's suffered a life threatening event and is not severely in danger of dying. No one really knows if the fish will die or how long it will survive, but we are doing everything we can (financially) to keep it alive. The fish itself seems to be clinging onto life as well, which really reminds me of real life situations.

Even though I am a bit scared of the fish itself, I feel really horrible looking at the fish in its current state. There's nothing within my power that I can do and the future for the goldfish remains unclear.

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