Popped Pollywog!!!!!�

2002-06-20

This is one of the strangest things I've ever run into. The ending is still up to question. If it had ended badly at this point, I wouldn't be able to tell it. I would be too depressed.

Last night, when I came home I looked into the pollywog jar. I saw what I thought was a bubble on the water, and looked closer. It was one of pollywogs; it's belly blown up almost 3/8's of a inch. The iridescence I thought was a bubble was pollywog skin stretched out to proportions I couldn't believe.

Feeling sad, sorry, and like the worst mom in the world I tried to scoop the little body out. It wiggled! It was still alive! I had thought it dead and blown up with the gasses of decomposition.

I thought for a moment and took it into the kitchen. What could cause this? I hadn't (and still haven't) a clue. I took and antibiotic pill and waved it around in the water. One pill is supposed be good for a ten gallon fishtank. There are maybe four cups of water in this jar. Too much is as bad as too little.

I came back every few minutes for the next couple of hours. That little belly was drying out. That couldn't be good. I put some of the water weed on it to hold it under the water.

Again I came back every few minutes to check on it. Then once again, it was floating on the top of the water. I lifted the weed and placed it on top of it to hold it under the surface.

I actually heard it pop! A micro fart. But most of the air-gas-whatever had escaped. It was already swimming more easily. I picked it up gently and rocked it back and forth. The last of the gas escaped it's body.

I put it in a bowl of bottled drinking water with another antibiotic tablet waved around in it. Having a hole in your body may let the gas out, but it also lets bacteria in. While it was still alive, I would give it every chance to live that I could manage.

It was alive when I went to bed last night. It was alive when I went to work this morning. After I checked on it in the morning, (spouse told me it was still alive! Alive!! Alive!!!!) I put it in the bowl with the others(along with the antibiotic water). It was alive when I went to work; it was alive when I came home. It's alive now, and eating the food I put in the bowl. I still fear that it won't live, but I'll still give it every chance I can. I still can't believe that my pollywog popped and is still alive!

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