THE PAINFUL REALITY

We had an abysmal year (December 2008 – December 2009) regarding our beloved rabbits. Throughout all of the literature on rabbits, you can repeatedly read the statement that a rabbit can live to be ten years old. But now, my husband, Chris, sarcastically adds, “Yeah, and a human can live to be a hundred.” He’s implying, obviously, that one event is just as likely as the other.

Between 2003 and 2007, we adopted a total of fourteen rabbits. By the time I introduced my Rabbits section of MultiFan, two-and-a-half-year-old GiggleFeather had already died of complications resulting from sludgy-bladder disease, in which calcium builds up in the bladder, ultimately filling it completely. She survived the flushing-out operation, but then, in her weakened state, she injured her right front paw somehow. It was soft-tissue damage, something that the vet was unable to fix. However, he reassured us that many rabbits learn to get around on three legs, and that she should be fine. Well, not our Giggle. Stubborn and proud as she was, she apparently just decided that, if she couldn’t move on four good legs, she wasn’t going to move at all. We force-fed her, but she kept losing weight. We gave her vet-prescribed drugs and saline-injections, but Giggle sat so immobile that she developed urine-scalding on her legs. We bathed her to soothe that, quickly blow-drying her with a warm hair-dryer, to prevent pneumonia. On the morning of May 1, 2006, Giggle clamored for attention. I picked her up and held her. She kissed me. I kissed her. And then she died. As Chris said, she waited for me. He told me that most animals die during the night.

We got through the rest of 2006, all of 2007, and most of 2008 without any further losses. I had already long since begun to regard Giggle’s loss as a tragic fluke. I could not have been more wrong.

Thanksgiving Day of 2008 was my last day of blissful naiveté. On all-too-aptly named “Black Friday,” it was evident that something was seriously wrong with beautiful, nine-pound Jason. He sat immobile in the playpen, as the other English angoras played around him. We rushed him to the vet. It was severe wool-block. The vet kept him overnight, and was frankly surprised that Jason made it through the night. But then came our poor boy’s next problem. He sat awkwardly collapsed, only occasionally trying, and failing, to get his legs under him. Against my better instincts, and to my eternal regret, I allowed Jason to be hospitalized for the entire week, clinging to desperate hope that the vet would somehow solve this baffling problem and save Jason. If I had only known that Jason had developed either spinal lymphoma or brain cancer (the blood-test results finally arrived, way too late), I would have insisted that Jason come home. He should have had the dignity of dying in his own home, where he was most comfortable, surrounded by the people and rabbits who loved him. We were just as capable of administering painkillers as the veterinary staff, via injection or syringe (we’d had plenty of practice with GiggleFeather). Instead, he endured the torment of barking dogs and screeching birds, he who was accustomed to a peaceful environment of only soft rabbit noises, and the quiet sounds of two not-so-young humans. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that we did right was to allow his bond-mate Jaime to stay there with him. Jason died during the wee hours of December 5, 2008, with Jaime the only loved-one beside him. He was only three-and-a-half.

In late April of 2009, dear little Wendy, our youngest, developed mild wool-block, and the vet assured us that she should come through it just fine. But by three days later, she lay morose and lethargic. Chris held her all afternoon, and I held her all evening: throughout which she stared directly into my eyes for hours. We placed her in a bassinet-style cage in our own bedroom for the night. In the morning, when we tried to give her prescription-medications to her, she went into convulsions, which the vet later informed me indicated a blood clot, probably in the brain, possibly in the heart. Our darling, adorable two-year-old had most likely died of a stroke. Like Giggle, she had waited for me all night: to die in my arms in the morning. And also like GiggleFeather, she had died on the morning of May 1, exactly three years later, to the day.

In mid-July, beautiful five-and-a-half-year-old Emily was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She had a large malignant mass in her chest that was pressing against her heart and lungs. We kept her comfortable with painkillers for two weeks, and held, comforted, and loved her. By the time that she was near the end, I had the flu. Chris brought Emily to me in bed, and she and I snuggled together. She kept trying to snuggle closer, as if, no matter how close we were, it still wasn’t close enough. On the morning of July 23, only a short time after Chris brought her to me, Emily spasmed in a heart-attack and died. Now, another rabbit had waited for me, for morning, to die in my arms.

Late on October 30, Jeremy, Jason’s twin-brother, became lethargic. His body temperature dropped alarmingly, indicating a possibly-cancerous brain-lesion, as our vet much later told us. He died during the wee hours of October 31. He was four-and-a-half years old. Like his brother, he had died without us, and with only his bond-mate, Amy, with him. But at least he had died in the comfort, quiet, and familiarity of his own home.

Late on November 17, Pipkin, our six-year-old, sagged in what appeared to be infinite weariness. She died during the wee hours of November 18, alone, apparently of “old age:” usually congestive heart failure, according to our vet.

On December 1, beloved, gorgeous, four-year-old Tiffany was stricken with severe wool-block. The vet declared that the huge mass was pushing against a major blood vessel that fed directly into the heart. Chris and I stayed with her around the clock, sleeping in shifts, medicating and syringe-feeding her. By the evening of December 2, she seemed better, and we thought that she would make it. But on the morning of December 3, when we attempted to give her prescription drugs to her, Tiffany spasmed in a heart-attack that mirrored that of Emily: once again a beloved rabbit had died in my arms.

Later the same month, Amy was stricken with pasteurella, more commonly known as “snuffles.” She likely had carried the infection with her all of her life, had brought it with her, in fact, from the breeder. Her immune system had fought it off for years. But now, age had caught up with her, and perhaps also stress, since she had just recently lost her bond-mate, Jeremy. With antibiotics, we appeared to send the infection back into remission. But the strain of the long, nearly three-week fight had been too much for her. At four-and-a-half years old, Amy died of apparent exhaustion from the battle at around 10PM on December 31.

I briefly considered updating the paragraph-descriptions of each of our rabbits in Bunny Beauties to reflect the losses, and especially to remove the no-longer-accurate labeling of Nickie and Wendy as being very young. But I decided to let it stand as it is, to allow this essay to tell the sad tale, and to permit my poem Tribute to express, as best I could, the resultant heartache.

We are now beginning new adoptions, and I will accordingly start a new section entitled Bunny Beauties: The Next Generation. But we are viewing these new bunnies with somber, more realistic eyes, alongside of our eyes of love.

For those readers who are fans of euthanasia, please do not bother to deluge me with tirades. These rabbits are and were our babies. I could no more kill them than I could have killed a human baby, if I had chosen to have one. Further, if I had put anybunny to sleep (please do not use the silly phrase “put down”: a put-down is an insult; “put to sleep” is the gentle term for euthanasia), I would have made some tragic mistakes. Fifteen months before Tiffany died of wool-block, she had a previous, severe case of wool-block in which she barely survived. We pulled her through that time. If we had put her to sleep, we would have deprived her of over a year of life and joy. Ditto for Nickie, who was simultaneously suffering a bad case of sludgy-bladder disease: had we put her to sleep, she, too, would have been dreadfully cheated. Everyone suffers from time to time: humans, animals, all of us. But they have just as much right to fight for their lives as we do. We keep them pain-free and as comfortable as possible. But I would not murder my own babies.

Until September 2010. Then the unthinkable happened. Then came the rabbit that could neither live nor die, on his own. Six-and-a-half-year-old Brinsley was stricken with a severe ear infection, resulting in what is known as tilt-head or wry neck. His right eye looked to the ceiling, while his left eye regarded only the floor. We began the usual regimen of vet-prescribed drugs, but he grew steadily worse, eventually sliding into a coma. The vet changed him to a different antibiotic, and Brinsley began to come out of it, suddenly ravenously hungry and thirsty. He had to be handfed, and given water through a syringe, but he seemed to be growing stronger. Most unfortunately, his ambition outran his progress. He became too desperate too soon to rise, was still too weak to do so, kicked furiously in the attempts, and broke his own back. In addition, his weeks-long dizziness from the ear infection had caused him to constantly choose to lie on his left side; no matter how many times we turned him onto his right, he always instantly panicked and flipped back over onto his left again. Because of that, and due to the frequent frustrated squirming, he had utterly destroyed his left eye, despite our frequent application of soothing rabbit-appropriate eyedrops. So now we had a rabbit who could never rise again, who could never again see anything other than the ceiling, but with a voracious appetite. Bewildered and stymied, feeling completely fenced in by cruel circumstances, I finally consented to have dear little Brinsley put to sleep. It went against everything that I had ever believed in and stood for, and I had had absolutely no choice.

And then his figurative brother dealt us the same cruel trap. In June of 2013, nine-year-old TickleFlower’s legs deteriorated bit by bit. First the fur went away. Then the skin. Then the flesh. We were seeing tendons in his feet. We kept him on painkillers, but he floundered and kept falling over, and needing to be propped up by Pixie, or by a wall. But he had a hearty appetite; he enjoyed his food and water and snuggling with Pixie. But he was suffering the bewilderment of why he couldn’t get around, why his legs didn’t work. We were stuck in the same vile quandary that we had been with Brinsley: here was a rabbit who could neither live nor die without help. We had him put to sleep.

Simultaneously, eight-year-old Jaime was dying of leukemia. But at least nature granted her the dignity of choosing her own time. On her last day, she ate heartily, played with her toys, and then went quietly to sleep. She and Tickle had died three days apart.

However, the loss of Tickle had ruined Pixie's life. He spent the remainder of his days searching for his lifelong companions. He searched his cage; he searched the playpen; he searched every room in which we let him loose. And he searched them over and over again, endlessly. Nearly a year after the loss of his beloved friend Tickle, Pixie's own legs began to deteriorate, in a cruel repetition of Tickle's downfall. One morning, we discovered that he had fallen face-first into his food bowl, and could not get up out of it. We picked him up, unhurt, but we realized that if he had fallen just two inches farther to the right, he would have fallen into his water bowl instead. That did it. I said, "We are not going to have a rabbit drown here." It was March 4, 2014. We had ten-year-old Pixie put to sleep.

The saga of these three companion boys, Brinsley, TickleFlower, and Pixie, our three euthanasia victims, is lovingly detailed by my husband, Chris, in his beautiful poem, "Together," which was first published in the Summer 2016 issue of the House Rabbit Society Journal. It is available in this section on page 5.

That same spring of 2014, two additional crises were coming to a head. Nine-year-old Taffy, who had often been a sickly child, but had always pulled through, was beginning to show the general, over-all decline of old age, including finding it increasingly difficult to hop around on weakening legs. Five-year-old Abbie, our first adoptee of Rabbits: The Next Generation, was starting to suffer deteriorating legs, in the manner of Tickle and Pixie before her. Our vet put both of them on the new drug Adequan, a surprisingly effective arthritis treatment for rabbits, horses, cats, and dogs (but not for humans, as it gradually destroys the liver). The drug improved the mobility of both rabbits.

But on June 21, Abbie suddenly began screaming. She continued to scream horribly for two minutes straight, as my husband held her and tried to soothe her. She went silent only when she died in his arms of a heart attack. Was it because of the drug? We'll never know.

For Taffy, however, Adequan was a stunning success. She enjoyed a long, beautiful summer with us, running around and jumping. As we read outside on nice days, she sat in our laps, ran around in our outdoor playpen, and ran loose in our yard (under our careful supervision, of course). Inside, she ran around on our bed and climbed all over me again, as she had previously lost the ability to do. And of course she snuggled close to my face as she had always loved to do. She would no longer eat on her own, but she happily and gratefully accepted being syringe-fed water, baby-food, Critical Care for rabbits, and our own pureed rabbit pellets. She continued, thus, until October 3, when, with both of us petting her and talking to her softly, she slowly went to sleep for the final time.

Bethany had not only been a both loving and lovely pet, but she had graced us with two beautiful daughters: Stephanie and Selene. In 2015, on May 15, seven-year-old Bethany began the day like any other: active, enthusiastic for her food, and loving toward her daughters and toward us. But by evening, she was withdrawn and lethargic. I held her in my arms and spoke soothingly to her, but she became increasingly limp. When Chris put her back into her cage, she collapsed, unable to stand. He hastily picked her back out, and we held her together as her head fell backward against her own back. I looked and saw that her pupils were blown. Chris murmured, "Ohhh, you've had a stroke, haven't you, little girl?" And just like that, she was gone.

In 2016, we knew that nine-year-old Nickie was in her last year. We had had her on Adequan for some time, and she had regained the ability to run around the house. Unique among our rabbits, Nickie thoroughly enjoyed being chased around by Chris, calling, "I'm gonna get Nickie!" But when she began to refuse to eat, she wasn't the eager, cooperative syringe-eater that Taffy had been. Instead, Nickie fought against the syringe, and let whatever little had gotten in to run back out again. Declining gradually, she became gaunt and unsteady, until Chris found her stretched out in her hidey-box the  morning of March 16.

On January 27, 2017, when Chris gave the bunnies their breakfast at 7AM, seven-year-old Persephone was as eager to eat as ever, pushing her sister Daphne aside to get to the food. But three hours later, when I awoke and went downstairs, she sat limp and lethargic. I offered her her favorite treat, and she didn't even sniff at it, let alone nibble. I pulled her into my arms and held her, petted her, and talked to her. She emitted no pain crunches, so we decided not to dose her with a pain killer. She had no interest in moving or exploring the sofa. When I put her back into Daphne's loving care, Persephone lay collapsed with her chin on the floor. Chris guessed that Persephone had had a heart attack between seven and ten in the morning, one that was not instantly fatal. She rolled over onto her right side, and her breathing became shallower. When we thought that she was gone, we lay her on the sofa, but I saw her breathe briefly, and twitch her paws and her head. Those were her last goodbyes.

On August 3, 2018, during the wee hours of the night, almost nine-year-old Daphne fell often, thrashing to regain her feet. Each time, we jumped out of bed and rushed to settle her comfortably again, but she seemed unable to keep her footing, unlike previous, much rarer nighttime incidents of the previous weeks. Finally, we settled her soothingly between two rolled-up towels, so that she could relax and rest. She did so. But sometime during those wee hours, she passed away from us forever. But up until her last day, she had eaten with a hearty appetite, and had showered us frequently with her sweet bunny kisses.

On March 10, 2019, I lost my beloved Chris. From then on, all bunny-losses were to be mine alone, without Chris to share the grief.

The following August 26, ten-year-old Blair's legs stopped working, due to an apparent stroke. I put him on Adequan shots, and he began to slowly improve. Although his movements were never again truly normal, he was, with my help, relearning to remain upright, and to take a few steps without falling. This continued until the morning of October 9, when, even though he could still stand upright, his poor beautiful head drooped to the floor in front of him. My heart sank. I knew that he would go sometime during that very day. Still, I continued to work with his legs, giving them "physical therapy" as I had been doing, and helping him to stand. Gradually, however, he sagged until he lay on his side and could no longer rise or remain upright even if I raised him. He kicked fitfully and futilely over a period of hours. He gave his last kick at around midnight. His sweet life was over forever.

On May 31, 2020, after a normal day of zestfully eating her kale and corn slims just like the other rabbits, in the early evening, eleven-year-old Eppie was sprawled on her side, unable to rise. She seemed to have had a stroke. Off and on, she kicked fitfully for hours. My holding her, and petting her, and talking to her appeared to be delaying the inevitable. Exhausted, I finally went to bed. Eppie died sometime during the night.

On August 5, 2020, after enjoying his cilantro in the afternoon, I found dear little eleven-year-old Perseus lying on his side. I picked him up and held him in my arms as he died. He made a few small sounds and slightly moved his head and front feet. He had waited for me, to say goodbye.

On November 22, 2020, Stephanie lay flopped on her cage floor, her chin on the floor, her front legs splayed, and unwilling to eat. When I picked her up and held her in my arms, she made a repetitious, rhythmic, nasal squealing sound, which was terrifying. Then she went limp, and her pupils were blown; she had had a stroke, just as her mother, Bethany had had. Stephanie was almost eight-and-a-half years old.

A mere ten days later, her twin sister Selene followed, and from the same apparent cause. I held her in my arms until her head lolled back and her pupils were blown. Unlike her twin sister, she made no sound.

On the morning of April 23, 2021, I knew that poor sweet Sebastian was going; he wouldn't eat, and his head lolled listlessly as I held him close. His back legs hadn't worked properly for quite some time. Though in the afternoon, he rallied, clamored for attention, and ate voraciously. But as doctors say, it was just "the surge," because I found him dead the next morning when I awoke. He was nearly nine years old.

On September 27, I could tell that Bonnie was near the end; she had been listless for days, and only willing to eat bunny yogurt candy; now she rejected even that. I held her close for a long while during the afternoon, during which she mostly slept. In the evening, I put her to bed in her cage, fearing that she would be gone by the next time that I saw her. And she was. She was nine years old.

The anguish of the losses was exceeded only by the joy of their sweet lives. To Chris and me, the privilege of sharing their lives was a treasure beyond measure.