Hey,
I haven’t been on here on so long, but I had the scariest(and most expensive) Christmas ever and I just thought I’d give a little update.
On the 22rd I went to feed sally breakfast and she had 0 interest in food, within 20 minutes she was completely flat and barely moving.
Couldn’t get into the rabbit clinic, so eventually found an emergency vet, who admitted her for 12 hours and eventually sent her home with instructions to give 2ml of critical care every few hours. They’d given her fluids and taken some blood tests. She was a little better when she came home but not much and still not eating
Thankfully I was able to get her into the rabbit clinic the next day, and they were amazing. Did an ultrasound and an X-ray, and were pretty confident that she has a liver node torsion, this time she was sent home with instructions to give 20ml of cc every few hours and ranitidine every 12. She started grinding her teeth, so we went back the next day and added meloxicam every 24 hours for pain
The 24th, we finally started to she some improvement, she was nibbling fruit if encouraged, drinking and making a bit of effort to clean herself
Because my uncle was visiting from overseas for the first time in a long time, and skipping Christmas with the family (an hour and a half drive away) wasn’t really an option so the vet at the rabbit clinic suggested we admit her at the emergency clinic on Christmas day, so she spent another 12 hours there on fluids. The rabbit savvy vet was amazingly helpful and wrote out clear detailed instructions for the emergency clinic but I’m not very confident that they read them all
She’s still getting all the medication now but she’s really really picked up. Pretty much back to normal although her appetite is still a little lower than normal, but shes eating and drinking. I still need to go back and get a few blood tests done just to check that everything’s improving and we’ll go a have a proper check-up as soon as the rabbit-clinic re-opens in early January
It was just so scary guys, I thought I was reasonably prepare for emergencies but not as well as I thought. I knew about critical care, but I didn’t notice that the non-rabbit savvy emergency vets 2 ml instructions for cc were wayyyy to low. And even though I’d done my research and found a rabbit-savvy vet I hadn’t even thought about who I’d call in an after hours emergency, so if anyone else hasn’t planned for that please take this as a reminder and find one before you need one.
Has anyone else had any experiences with liver node torsion? What treatment did you buns go though. Surgery was a possibility but I think we’ve managed to avoid it this time
Also the first vet gave her fluids in one of her ears 4 days ago and it’s become sort to half-lopped since, should I be worried?
Sorry if this post is a little long, but I spent Christmas getting told that I was spending to much money for ‘just a rabbit’, that they’re ‘pests’ and lots of rabbit meat jokes, so I mainly just wanted to get it all out somewhere where people know just how important bunnies are to their human-parents.