The Health Hazards of Guinea Pigs

 

A little known fact that I learned last week: guinea pigs are a potentially deadly health hazard! 

Some context:

I had a dog when I was a child and planned to have one when I was an adult.  However, my wife Elyse has never liked dogs and when we were contemplating getting married she gave me a choice, I could have a dog or I could marry her.  After an extended period of contemplation (one year to be exact) I made one of the better decisions in my life and decided to forgo a dog and marry Elyse.

Though happily married I still wanted a dog--a golden retriever to be exact.  Unbeknownst to us the desire to own a dog is genetic since our two daughters both want a dog as well.  They have spent the last 14 years pestering my wife to get a dog (I might have chimed in a few times and pestered her to change her mind as well).  Elyse remained firm in her convictions and stated that we would never have a pet that could leave its cage or that would stink up the house, which explains the aquarium in the living room.  But still we pestered on and Elyse remained resolute in her resolve.

But then I was diagnosed with cancer.  I have read that cancer changes your life.  I have remained the same dopey person that I was before my diagnosis, but something changed in Elyse.  There was a crack in her resolve, a crumbling in her convictions.  Two months ago out of nowhere Elyse announced that we should buy the girls a pet.  No dog, but perhaps something smaller, a hamster or a rabbit, maybe?  Where this change came from is still unknown, perhaps in her mind pets would be transitional objects for the girls if I die from cancer (she denies this but I like the way it sounds so I chose to believe this reason).

After some investigating we settled on guinea pigs (they are diurnal and damned cute) and brothers Jasper and Charlie moved into our home.  At first they were to be banished to Hannah’s room, but it was decided that since they were family members they should be with their family so their cage has found a permanent home in our living room.  Charlie and Jasper have settled in and become regular if somewhat noisy members of our family.

Since December I have completed 5 rounds of chemotherapy.  I have escaped somewhat unscathed except for a 3 week long episode of the flu in February and two weeks of pneumonia in late March.  On the whole the chemotherapy has not been that difficult to tolerate, except when the steroids made me so irritable that my wife almost left me, but after the steroid dose was lowered my marriage was saved.

The next step will be a stem cell transplant beginning next week.  I will spend two weeks generating lots of healthy stem cells that will be removed from my blood and frozen.  On May 5^th I will enter a sterile room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 3 weeks.  My immune system will be knocked out with chemotherapy and then rebooted with my frozen healthy stem cells.  During and after this whole process my immune system will be very weak, which leads us back to the hazardous guinea pigs.

Last week I met with Muriel Gannon, a nurse at Dana Farber who oversees the stem cell transplant process.  During the course of our meeting she asked about pets in our home.  I informed her of the cute new guinea pigs who recently moved in.  Muriel frowned; guinea pigs are not good when you have a compromised immune system as I will for 2-3 months after I come home from the hospital.  Guinea pigs spend their time in their cage eating and pooping.  As Muriel described it, the guinea pigs running around their cage causes their feces to become air borne which we then breathe in.  Breathing in guinea pig poop can be hazardous to your health when you have a compromised immune system.  (Think about this the next time you come to visit us and breathe in our air full of guinea pig poop.)

What an ignominious way to die, death from guinea pig poop.

The solution to this problem is to move the guinea pigs to the basement and then I have to avoid the basement for a few months.  My daughters are not happy about this.  According to them, Jasper and Charlie will be cold and lonely in the dark unheated basement.  Given the choice between their father’s health and their guinea pigs they would choose the guinea pigs in a heart beat.

Ironically, according to Muriel the stem cell nurse, although guinea pigs are a potential health hazard, a dog would be fine pet after my stem cell transplant since they do all of their pooping outside.