Hi All,
Thank you for your advice in advance. I’ve never been a member of the forum, but I feel like I have a really tough decision ahead of me and was hoping for some of your advice.
A little background – I’ve had Bianca, my white, deaf, blue eyed Netherlands Dwarf for almost 9 years now (I got her when she was 11 months). She came from a breeder as part of her show stock, but was too small to breed, and deaf, so she became my little girl. She’s had a pretty good life (I think it’s natural to wish you’ve done more when you get to the end) and has lived with other bunnies and piggies at times, but is our last surviving little one.
She has e. cuniculi which she’s had since I first brought her home (she had an apparent seizure) but after a few rounds of antibiotics has been symptom free. She once lacerated her eye on what we believe was her cage, and after a lot of orthopedic treatment has been pretty healthy ever since. Though, she has terrible molts.
Anyway, she began another terrible molt and wasn’t looking great, but I just assumed it was the molt and continued to brush her out when I noticed a lump on the top right portion of her cheek. When I touched it she winced in pain, so off to the vet we went. Though they said her teeth look good, they believe it’s a dental abscess which we’ll need to have surgically scraped. However, upon further examination (though her weight is stable) they found a mass in her abdomen, possibly a swollen uterus, and believe she either has an infection or uterine cancer. She’s never been spayed because of her size and the e. cuniculi – so they thought it was more of a risk unless she was going to be around un-neutered males.
So here’s my question – she’s old and fragile so what do we do? The options we were given are: We can put her under to lance the abscess. We can put her under to lance the abscess and do an abdominal Xray with a dental Xray, we can put her under to lance the abscess and have her spayed (plus Xrays). They said she wouldn’t survive exploratory surgery at this point to see what the swelling is which is why the spay came up (a quick fix). The doctor said her risks are great, just going under – and it’s heartbreaking to think of her recovering from surgery at this age. Of course the cost of doing it all is well over $1000 US dollars, as it’s about $400 each for the surgeries. Oh, she weighs 1lb 12oz.
So what would you do? Just looking for opinions before I state even part of mine (I’m completely undecided though I have some stronger feelings). Thank you.