Hamsters and Heat--I Don't Recommend It

We used to have a hamster.
Well at least now you know where this is headed so take a moment to prepare yourself emotionally.
Her name was Penny and in the beginning she was a lovely little pet. Didn't bite, stayed in her cage (unlike other creatures that reside in my home), only smelled when her cage needed cleaning.
Then she got fat.
For some reason, gaining enough weight to cause a hamster to get stuck inside their crawling tubes also makes them incredibly grumpy. Who knew??!! So then Penny started to bite and the kids lost interest in her. Go figure--who wants to play with something that is going to draw blood??
So one day a few months ago and I put her inside her exercise ball to roll around on the kitchen floor while I was cleaning the cage. Liz comes and, sees her and wants to take her outside. No,not a good idea--it's pretty warm out. Please, please, please, pleeeease, you get the point. My nerves are shot--Fine, take her, just make sure you keep her in the shade. ("Famous last words" sort of applies here)
So I finish cleaning the cage and go outside to tell the kids to bring her inside, and the kids are nowhere to be found, but poor Penny is sitting in the direct sunlight in the yard. She's not looking so good.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that my thermometer read 98 at the time.

I take Penny in and dump her out--she's not moving and she's pretty hot to the touch, so I start dousing her with cool water and after a few minutes she starts convulsing--at least she's moving, right?? She stops seizing and I take a medicine dropper and start giving her drops of water which she eagerly drinks. Then she flips over onto her paws on my hand, sits there for a moment, looks at me, then tries to bite me!! You have GOT to be kidding me!! I just nursed this hamster back from grip of death and she has the nerve to bite me! Unbelievable!

So here I am thinking "disaster averted--lesson learned--PHEW!" but alas, it was not to be. . .
When Chris was putting the kids to bed that night he checked on her and apparently the stress of heat stroke was just too much for the little thing.

Then we had to tell the kids.

It didn't go well. Sam, in his four year old wisdom kept trying to say, "Why did the girls have to take Penny outside??!!" I kept casually clutching him to my chest to muffle his words.
Then the inevitable happened--Emma asks, "Did Penny die because we took her outside??"
(Yes, of course she did.) Chris and I hesitate for half a second and then reply (emphatically and simultaneously I may add)--"NO ABSOLUTELY NOT! IT DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT!" Nothing really obvious there or anything. . .
So I'm sure somewhere in Liz's summer writing journal there's an entry about how her hamster coincidentally died on the very same day she took her outside to dry roast, uhh, I mean play in the summer sun. . . .