It’s been a very scary week here. Luna became very unwell very suddenly and it was a struggle to get her the care she needed. I’ve surmised the week below leading to where we are today.
-Tuesday night, refused pellets, painful, very small poops (last poops), would eat hand fed grass or sometimes hay.
-Wednesday morning I rang and made an appointment at our vet but they couldn’t get her in until the next day at 3:45pm! Wednesday afternoon we made a trip to two emergency vets (after ringing about 10 clinics who couldn’t fit her in). Luna was lethargic, very painful, not eating/pooping, and her milky blue cataract turned golden. She received sub-q fluids, pain meds and gut motility, but the vet wasn’t comfortable enough with rabbits to do diagnostics so I brought her home overnight and I got up every two hours to feed and check on her.
-Thursday morning I phoned our vet again to see if there was any hope of bringing her appointment forward. No, but they said I could drop her off and while they couldn’t make any promises, they said the vet would see her earlier if she could before she went into surgery, and there were at least nurses on hand if she crashed. Fortunately they had time. Full blood work, x-ray, IV fluids, critical care and more pain meds were on board within the hour. I went in to see her at our appointment time and was told it wasn’t good news. Liver and kidney values were through the roof, no blockage but stomach was full and cecum empty. Vet recommended PTS but also said we could give her until the next day as she was relatively stable. Having seen her sort of listless behaviour before when my previous rabbit was dying, and not wanting her to endure too much I was unsure about continuing. But I chatted with my husband on the phone and we decided to try, at the very least, for Apollo’s sake. Thursday night was spent in a gruelling state of exhaustion and anticipation of the next morning, with every worst case scenario running through my head.
– Friday morning (today) I got the call that she was perkier, bloods had stabilised but not reduced. Our vet mentioned it looked like a toxin reaction, as it happens I’d found a dead venemous spider in their pen a few hours prior. We visited after lunch and were told she had pooped (after more than 48 hours without!) And she had chewed through her IV line four times that morning, including after they wrapped it in aluminium, so they switched to sub-q fluids. When they called at the end of the day to update us they said she had started to eat independently.
Assuming all goes well overnight, we get to bring her home tomorrow. While she is feeling better her prognosis is still very guarded as the damage to her liver and kidneys may be too severe to recover. If she crashes again once she is home off the fluids we are probably going to have to let her go. The fact that she is still with us now is nothing short of a miracle, as I’m surprised we didn’t lose her on the Wednesday night. I’m really hoping she pulls through, not just for me but for Apollo too, he misses her a lot.
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