Sadness
Got the gym and the shower out of the way Tuesday afternoon, but ran out of time to finish my manicure. Got about three hours to sleep and was in to work fairly tired, because I was up good and early Tuesday morning. Very very pink -- pink design on my T-shirt, light pink cargo pants, bright pink undershirt, neon pink manicure.
Still, a functional shift, some overtime, and then home late Wednesday morning to get things ready for work that night and finish up my nails. They looked good when I added the black detailing and awesome with a few delicate black linework decals. Then I had to open up the bottle of pink heart-shaped glitter and start manually adding pink and silver hearts here and there. That was the detail that went too far -- but when am I ever going to be likely to use the hearts, except the first half of February?
I viewed my nails with satisfaction, lay back on the couch, and napped for about three hours. Woke up, got a snack, watched a little TV, took a few photos of my finished manicure -- noticed Willow hadn't come out of the cage to beg for some oatmeal...
So Willow's maybe been a bit lazier than usual in the last few weeks -- or had she been doing her accustomed occasional charge around the room when I wasn't noticing because I was passed out from exhaustion? And she's been looking a little disheveled -- but she looked to be shedding, so perfectly normal (and I really should have been capturing her and running a brush over her occasionally, but it's a chase and a struggle and I've been working such long hours lately)...
Wednesday evening, though, she was snoozing on a shelf in the cage and looked really zonked -- which, sometimes she ignores me when she's sleeping and I'm trying to get her attention, but she seemed not just asleep but out of it. I petted at her, then I actually got the brush and took a few swipes along her side, and she didn't react like she normally would (hopping off the shelf to get away from the brush). I wound up pulling her off the shelf and out of the cage to inspect her, and after I'd set her down she didn't react quite as energetically as I would have expected -- just hopping about five feet away from me, and then stopping and not trying to evade me when I approached her again. (Normally she'd dash to the other side of the room and get under the sideboard, and avoid me for a while.) I could tell she wasn't feeling too well, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. I offered a yogurt drop and she ignored it -- I tried massaging her belly to see if she had any strange masses or something, and she let me without trying to get away. After she went back into the cage I offered a smidgen of dried oatmeal and then fresh greens, and she wouldn't take either. I got a 3mL syringe, filled it with water, and dispensed it into her mouth -- she made drinking motions, so I did it a couple more times.
I wasn't yet worried enough to take her to an after-hours vet -- also, I was running out of time to get to one, be seen, and get home with time to get ready for work. I was also running of time to get any more sleep before work that night -- so I went to bed. (Past 9pm by the time I was done fussing over Willow and then getting ready.)
I don't think I actually slept any, but I still got up and out of bed later than I wanted to, so I was rushing around trying to get out the door on time and had no time to try to cosset Willow any further. She was really worrying me by that point, though, and still refusing to eat.
I couldn't bring myself to call in to work and take a sick (bunny) day, but I was worried about her all night (and wishing I'd decided to go the vet earlier in the evening, and thinking I'd need to get out of work on time in the morning to go collect her and get her in to see the rabbit vet). I sent Mom a text on my 2am break, to see in the morning when she was waking up for work, asking her to check on Willow and let me know how she was doing. Specifically, if she was still alive...
About 5:30 I got a reply back from Mom. She didn't make a specific statement about Willow being dead or alive -- having breathing trouble and then collapsing and now just lying there with half-open eyes -- but she made it sound very likely that there was no point in me rushing home at the end of my shift to get Willow to the vet.
And sure enough, it was too late for her by the time I got home. She had knocked over the water bowls when she collapsed, and poor Stilinski had been in the cage with her like that for hours with nothing to drink. He left the cage in a rush and wouldn't go back inside till late in the day. I got my things ready for the evening's shift and then went outside to dig a hole in the backyard in the just-above-freezing weather. (At least the drizzle I'd driven home in had largely stopped.)
I used Mom's gardening gloves to pick her up with -- poor thing, stretched out stiff and with ants on her face. The hole only needed a little lengthening and down she went. A few feet over from where I vaguely remembered burying Trixie Belle -- I definitely didn't want to risk unearthing Trixie, since Mom had enshrouded her in Wal-Mart bags and I suspected the plastic might have interfered with natural decay processes and left something oozy and unpleasant. I noticed coming back into the house afterwards that it was just a few minutes past noon.
I am of course kicking myself for not having taken her to the emergency vet Wednesday night when I was beginning to realize she was definitely sick and I still had time to do so before work. But rabbits being rabbits -- hiding signs of weakness and tending to conceal symptoms of illness until they're pretty much on their last legs -- there's a good chance it was already too late to save her.
She had a good life with me, I think, I hope. Better than she would have had if she'd never been adopted from the rabbit sanctuary, at least. (I just went browsing back through my "wicked tricksy rabbitses" tag -- I brought her home in March 2011, so nearly four years she had with me.)
I may want to swap out the "Wicked tricky rabbitses" icon in my set, since now both the rabbits pictured in it are dead and gone. I had been thinking I should create a new one with Willow and Stilinski -- now maybe I'll replace it with a photo of Stilinski and whatever bunny I wind up bringing home to be his new partner.
I'm not making a bunny speed-dating appointment for him just yet. I'm not ready to deal with another rabbit personality, nor with the fuss and bother of trying to convince two rabbits to bond and learn to trust one another. I will, probably in the next month or two. Easter is coming, and the sanctuary will inevitably be swamped afterwards with dumped bunnies. Plenty to choose from, and they'll be eager to send one off to experienced hands.
Stilinski is not a bit happy. Yesterday he was frantic to get out of the cage when I got home, and then a few hours later even more aggressive with the cats than usual. I saw him lurking behind the love seat and lowered my hand to waggle my fingers at his eye level. Normally he would come forward to inspect my hand and I'd pet him on the forehead -- yesterday afternoon he lunged and attacked my hand, then ran off. I got up and caught him and pinned him for a cuddle, to remind him not to get too pushy with me because I'm not going to be chased off like the cats are -- my hand was bleeding quite a bit where he'd bitten me.
Today he's spent largely moping in the cage. I'm remembering Willow's moping after Marvin's death and how I took her to the rabbit sanctuary to find a new partner sooner than I'd planned to. If Stilinski keeps acting out or moping (or both), he may indeed be going speed-dating well before Easter...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Still, a functional shift, some overtime, and then home late Wednesday morning to get things ready for work that night and finish up my nails. They looked good when I added the black detailing and awesome with a few delicate black linework decals. Then I had to open up the bottle of pink heart-shaped glitter and start manually adding pink and silver hearts here and there. That was the detail that went too far -- but when am I ever going to be likely to use the hearts, except the first half of February?
I viewed my nails with satisfaction, lay back on the couch, and napped for about three hours. Woke up, got a snack, watched a little TV, took a few photos of my finished manicure -- noticed Willow hadn't come out of the cage to beg for some oatmeal...
So Willow's maybe been a bit lazier than usual in the last few weeks -- or had she been doing her accustomed occasional charge around the room when I wasn't noticing because I was passed out from exhaustion? And she's been looking a little disheveled -- but she looked to be shedding, so perfectly normal (and I really should have been capturing her and running a brush over her occasionally, but it's a chase and a struggle and I've been working such long hours lately)...
Wednesday evening, though, she was snoozing on a shelf in the cage and looked really zonked -- which, sometimes she ignores me when she's sleeping and I'm trying to get her attention, but she seemed not just asleep but out of it. I petted at her, then I actually got the brush and took a few swipes along her side, and she didn't react like she normally would (hopping off the shelf to get away from the brush). I wound up pulling her off the shelf and out of the cage to inspect her, and after I'd set her down she didn't react quite as energetically as I would have expected -- just hopping about five feet away from me, and then stopping and not trying to evade me when I approached her again. (Normally she'd dash to the other side of the room and get under the sideboard, and avoid me for a while.) I could tell she wasn't feeling too well, but I wasn't sure what to do about it. I offered a yogurt drop and she ignored it -- I tried massaging her belly to see if she had any strange masses or something, and she let me without trying to get away. After she went back into the cage I offered a smidgen of dried oatmeal and then fresh greens, and she wouldn't take either. I got a 3mL syringe, filled it with water, and dispensed it into her mouth -- she made drinking motions, so I did it a couple more times.
I wasn't yet worried enough to take her to an after-hours vet -- also, I was running out of time to get to one, be seen, and get home with time to get ready for work. I was also running of time to get any more sleep before work that night -- so I went to bed. (Past 9pm by the time I was done fussing over Willow and then getting ready.)
I don't think I actually slept any, but I still got up and out of bed later than I wanted to, so I was rushing around trying to get out the door on time and had no time to try to cosset Willow any further. She was really worrying me by that point, though, and still refusing to eat.
I couldn't bring myself to call in to work and take a sick (bunny) day, but I was worried about her all night (and wishing I'd decided to go the vet earlier in the evening, and thinking I'd need to get out of work on time in the morning to go collect her and get her in to see the rabbit vet). I sent Mom a text on my 2am break, to see in the morning when she was waking up for work, asking her to check on Willow and let me know how she was doing. Specifically, if she was still alive...
About 5:30 I got a reply back from Mom. She didn't make a specific statement about Willow being dead or alive -- having breathing trouble and then collapsing and now just lying there with half-open eyes -- but she made it sound very likely that there was no point in me rushing home at the end of my shift to get Willow to the vet.
And sure enough, it was too late for her by the time I got home. She had knocked over the water bowls when she collapsed, and poor Stilinski had been in the cage with her like that for hours with nothing to drink. He left the cage in a rush and wouldn't go back inside till late in the day. I got my things ready for the evening's shift and then went outside to dig a hole in the backyard in the just-above-freezing weather. (At least the drizzle I'd driven home in had largely stopped.)
I used Mom's gardening gloves to pick her up with -- poor thing, stretched out stiff and with ants on her face. The hole only needed a little lengthening and down she went. A few feet over from where I vaguely remembered burying Trixie Belle -- I definitely didn't want to risk unearthing Trixie, since Mom had enshrouded her in Wal-Mart bags and I suspected the plastic might have interfered with natural decay processes and left something oozy and unpleasant. I noticed coming back into the house afterwards that it was just a few minutes past noon.
I am of course kicking myself for not having taken her to the emergency vet Wednesday night when I was beginning to realize she was definitely sick and I still had time to do so before work. But rabbits being rabbits -- hiding signs of weakness and tending to conceal symptoms of illness until they're pretty much on their last legs -- there's a good chance it was already too late to save her.
She had a good life with me, I think, I hope. Better than she would have had if she'd never been adopted from the rabbit sanctuary, at least. (I just went browsing back through my "wicked tricksy rabbitses" tag -- I brought her home in March 2011, so nearly four years she had with me.)
I may want to swap out the "Wicked tricky rabbitses" icon in my set, since now both the rabbits pictured in it are dead and gone. I had been thinking I should create a new one with Willow and Stilinski -- now maybe I'll replace it with a photo of Stilinski and whatever bunny I wind up bringing home to be his new partner.
I'm not making a bunny speed-dating appointment for him just yet. I'm not ready to deal with another rabbit personality, nor with the fuss and bother of trying to convince two rabbits to bond and learn to trust one another. I will, probably in the next month or two. Easter is coming, and the sanctuary will inevitably be swamped afterwards with dumped bunnies. Plenty to choose from, and they'll be eager to send one off to experienced hands.
Stilinski is not a bit happy. Yesterday he was frantic to get out of the cage when I got home, and then a few hours later even more aggressive with the cats than usual. I saw him lurking behind the love seat and lowered my hand to waggle my fingers at his eye level. Normally he would come forward to inspect my hand and I'd pet him on the forehead -- yesterday afternoon he lunged and attacked my hand, then ran off. I got up and caught him and pinned him for a cuddle, to remind him not to get too pushy with me because I'm not going to be chased off like the cats are -- my hand was bleeding quite a bit where he'd bitten me.
Today he's spent largely moping in the cage. I'm remembering Willow's moping after Marvin's death and how I took her to the rabbit sanctuary to find a new partner sooner than I'd planned to. If Stilinski keeps acting out or moping (or both), he may indeed be going speed-dating well before Easter...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.