I RIPPED MY RABBIT’S STITCHES OFF!

[Standard_Procedure]

I got a new job starting soon so I finally decided to spay my rabbit. Otherwise I’ll never have the time to do it. The operation is a success and she’s back home… The following day she ate some hay, refused to eat anything else or drink water. I tried Oxbow Critical Care in a bowl but she ignored that. Nothing I did worked so I used a syringe to force feed her with Oxbow Critical Care. She put up a hell of a fight, so I used a towel to bind her, but she still managed to keep turning and twisting both her head and body really violently away from the syringe. I got some food into her but when I took the towel away I realised her stitches are RIPPED OPEN! I was due for a checkup at my nearest vet branch, but they don’t do surgeries so I had to drag my rabbit all the way to another city, to their main hospital branch. The journey was gruelling and I’ve been informed instead of dissolvable stitches they’re now going to use staples to close the wound!

I should be able to collect my rabbit tomorrow if all goes well. Can’t believe what I did. My rabbit must be thinking she did something wrong for me to rip her stomach open and abandon her. She’s probably in pain as I’m typing. It’s almost midnight here. Won’t be sleeping tonight. It’s too quiet without my rabbit here.

[DethronedbyQueenB]

((((This will pass in time))))

Try to breathe well and not let the mind go to scary places…we can conjure up all sorts of stuff in these situations but try to stick with facts and what you know for sure. It’s hard and you both have suffered; I have a feeling you are hurting more than she is at the moment. She probably has meds.

You are doing your best and that’s all you can do!

Try to take care of you right now, too. <3

[Hazel]

I’m so sorry! What a horrible thing to go through for you both. Please don’t blame yourself, you were just trying to take care of her. It sounds like she’ll be fine. I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to worry too much, she’s in good hands. I hope you get to pick her up tomorrow!

[Megabunny]

Oh I’m so sorry to hear that. How heartbreaking when these rabbits feel like our children and we feel we have hurt them. But the others are right. You can’t let your mind go there or it will haunt you. We cannot know everything that’s going to happen. I’m guessing most of us have some horror story we wish we could go back in time and redo. It will be ok. Keep us posted

[Beka27]

Oh no! I hope she feels better! That’s really scary… :'(

[robyn and 'tipps']

You cant blame yourself. Hoping your bunny makes a good recovery. Positive vibes to your bunny ((( ))). Please keep us posted.

[Standard_Procedure]

The good news is I found out it wasn’t my fault the wound reopened, but the bad news is my rabbit’s reopened her wound herself last night! Must have hurt biting off the staples. The vet glued the wound shut. The very bad news is the vet was forced to attach a neck collar to prevent my rabbit from leaning forward to reach the wound. Said attaching anything to the wound is useless if my rabbit’s capable of tearing off staples. They also had problems orally feeding her antibiotics so I have to commute every day (30 min walk each way) for a week to the vet clinic for an injection, and it’s going to be expensive doing that. I’m also paying the same price to spay my rabbit a second time!

[DethronedbyQueenB]

Oh no :/

Glad you can let go of the guilt but sucketh that the situation isn’t going smoother yet.
Did Vet say how long these usually take to heal enough to get the collar off? I can imagine she isn’t happy about that.

[Standard_Procedure]

Maybe a week depending on how fast the wound heals. I brought my bun home and watching her struggle to eat. It’s a dog collar with a cone like plastic hood attached making it difficult to eat or drink. Back tomorrow for the injection.

[Flopsie]

Can you make it easier for her to eat? Like hand feeding the food or bringing the water to her?

[Roberta]

There are soft collars available for bunnies and other pocket pets. Is there anywhere you could get hold of one of those ? They fold back like a skirt when they are eating.

[Megabunny]

Yup. My Gus went through nearly three weeks in a soft collar. They’re a bit $$ but he got used to it. Maybe yours will get used to the hard one. In the meantime, be prepared they can’t reach to eat their cecals and I ended up with a big smeary mess in the cage every night. I was told to offer to recede them to him but he didn’t like that idea any more than I did! Bleh!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Oh a soft collar is a good idea!
Keep us posted

[Standard_Procedure]

An update…

On Thursday 13th Nov I got hold of a soft plastic hood you can flip backwards, which I did when it’s food time, but instead of eating my rabbit went crazy at the glued wound. I used my hand to block her biting, but she scampered away quickly and chewed enough to reopen the wound for a 3rd time. Had to go back to the hospital for a 4th operation if you count the original spay.

After that it was back to the hard plastic. Soft smeared poop ended up all over the plastic hood every half day, all over the carpet, cage, and my clothes while I tried to clean it off. I shut my rabbit in a small cage restricting movement.

Today the wound is finally almost healed. Some of the scabbing has fallen off. I’ll give it another couple of days before removing the hood because I have read when it’s nearly healed it’s suppose to get really itchy.

[Beka27]

Oh wow! Seems like everything that could go wrong has. So sorry you’re having to deal with this! This is definitely not a common occurrence!

Glad to hear she’s finally healing! Thank you for the update!

[Author]

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