Romy isn't the only disabled animal I have in the house. No, Jared, my pet rat(one of the 11 pet rats I own) lost his eye when he was really little.
Normally, I don't buy pets in a store, I go to shelters or a recognized breeder, but I bumped into 70!!! rats in a store, in really bad conditions. At the moment, I was a member of a Belgian rat shelter and I informed them about those 70 rats. They told me to come to an agreement with the store (no more selling of rats) and they'd take all 70 rats into their shelter. 
The store promised as so and off I went, with two cat carriers full of rats...

At home, I took al look, found my one eyed man and a look - a - like sister and I kept them. 
Jared's sister is fine, she lives in a cage with only other females,. But Jared...Well, that eye needed to be operated, or he could die. So we took the expencive operation. Unfortunally, because he can't see what's coming, Jared attacks everything coming his way. So, I have to keep him in a seperate cage, on his own. Such a pity, as rat's are group animals and need at least one compagnion of the SAME SEX with them.

If it wasn't enough that Jared lost his eye, he developed another problem. Al abcess'  'round one of his front legs. My regular vet told me I couldn't do much more than giving him a pain killer, as an operation was impossible. 
So, that's what I did. But well, thanks to Faith's story, I'm concidering finding a vet, that's willing to amputate Jared's front leg, so the abcess' can be taken away and he can eat more comfortable than he can do now. 
The only thing keeping me from the operation is that I'm afraid of loosing him. I don't want him to die. He's just one year old, about 1/3 of his life just passed by, he is independed and doesn't show that he's in pain much (but still, be carefull, rat's are good in hiding pain ;) ), so I really don't know what to do. Don't wanna loose the little guy already...

Anyway, pictures:

As a 'baby' :-)

About 5/6 months old

a

And the last pic for now, taken feb 9th 2011 :-)