a week ago yesterday i adopted the sweetest bunny in the world, knowing that she had a plethora of health problems (snuffles and two types of parasites), just hoping that i would be able to give her the treatment she needed to help her live a happy, healthy, full life. 

she was just a teeny lovebug. i love the way she’d climb into my lap, perch herself on top of my thigh, and push her whole body into me until i pet her. i love the way she’d race over to me when i cheerily greeted her with, “hello sweetness!” even in her sickness. i love the way she’d rub her nose against mine. i love the way she’d alway try to steal my ring from my finger. i love the way she’d try to tunnel into my rolled up rug. i love her purr and her tiny honk, i loved seeing her happy. i love the way she’d sit calmly and quietly in the crook of my arm when she had to ride in the car with me, refusing to ride any other way (no carriers or other people for her, nope). i love the little crunching noises she made when she ate, i loved sharing arugula with her. i love how much she loved arugula and cilantro, a sign that she was truly meant to be my bunny. she deserved so much more time and happiness than she got. she never even had a chance to live. 

when i took her to the vet for the fifth time this week, my vet told me she had an intestinal blockage and would need surgery if she didn’t pass it overnight, and because she was so tiny and because bunnies are so unpredictable, she gave her only a 50% chance of survival. i cried so hard just holding her against my chest and petting her, thinking about how unfair it was that she was so young and hadn’t had a chance at all to be healthy even though i tried so hard to give her a shot at it, and she started purring happily in my arms. i couldn’t help but smile through the tears, just relieved and grateful that she had at least felt some of my love or had some sense of how much i truly love her. 

i prayed so hard that night for the first time in years, and in the morning it seemed as though my prayers had been answered. it seemed she had passed the blockage with the help of motility drugs. she started eating again and became less lethargic and more interested in her surroundings. she was moving faster, she seemed much perkier and more playful. but the next day, she was even worse than before. i kept praying. i took her back to a vet, a different doctor this time, and he confirmed she would need surgery. i kept praying, i told her that she would be okay, that i needed her to fight. she didn’t make it through. the vet found that she had some kind of birth defect in her small intestine that made it impossible for the blockage to pass and said he was shocked that she had lived this long. he only made me pay the deposit for the surgery (about 1/6 of the total cost) because he felt so sorry that i loved her so much and i tried and tried to help her but i was fighting a losing battle the whole time. 

he reassured me that i did everything i could for her, with all the vet visits and a strict regimen of medications and nutrition and the days i took off from work to stay with her, but i still have so much guilt. i feel like i didn’t do enough to help her, even though i can’t think of anything else i could have possibly done. i tried so hard and i was helpless. i feel like maybe i didn’t pray well enough to save her. now i feel like if i don’t stay miserable, if i try to do things to take my mind off of this and calm myself down, then i’m doing her a disservice, like i can only continue showing her my love by feeling my pain in her absence. 

i’m thankful for the time i got to spend with her. i’m so, so grateful i got to love her if only for a (too) short while and for the love she showed me, too. i’m glad i could at least offer her some joy and love in the last week of her life.  

i love and miss her so much. she was a tiny ray of light in my world when it felt like everything was falling apart. i keep expecting her to be sitting beside my bed every time i enter my room, like i could say, “hello my little love” and she’d come back to me. but she’s not there and she’s never going to be there again. it’s so hard to wrap my head around that. 

she overwhelmed my heart so quickly and i know i only had her for a week, i know it’s only been a day since she passed, but i feel like i’ll never get past her loss. i need help with this. i need reassurance that i did what i could for her, that i did the right thing by trying to save her with surgery, that she’s okay now, that i’ll eventually be okay too. i don’t know what to do. she was my first bunny and i feel like i was too inexperienced to help her the way she needed even though i researched and researched and tried my absolute best and i have no idea if she would have lived this long without me. i need help. i need to know how other people got through this.

i don’t seem to be having any luck attaching images to this post, so here’s a link to a few photos of my sweet girl: http://imgur.com/a/DLHnn