Lily
Sep 9, 2019 approximately 3 PM
Within minutes after I arrived, Lily's siezures became more frequent and harder. It was extremely difficult to watch. But I held her through all of it so she doesn't leap out into the floor and hurt herself more. Mommy was there holding her too. And through every sob, we were repeatedly whispering to Lily, "let go baby. Mommy and Daddy will be okay" even though we knew we weren't. We just didn't want her in pain anymore. "We'll see you someday, with Dexter, Daisy and Eeyore."
As the painful end neared, I felt her heart beat dozens of times per second -- so fast I felt it would explode. But what could I do but sob, hold on and tell her that I love her over and over?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And the helplessness of it all added to the pain. Why can't we save you, baby? Why couldn't we do a damn thing to even help you through this? And you're so innocent, so well loved and so well cared for. As we felt her expire, amidst our tears, our doctor injected her with the drug that will ensure she goes to her forever sleep.
As rabbit parents, we have to believe she will go to rabbit heaven to wait for us, along with her old friends. We have to believe it, because really, what is the alternative? That we've lost you forever. No, that can't be.
January 2, 2016
For over 2 years, Dexter was the only child in our family. It tooks us years to get over the trauma of past losses and didn't want any new rabbits.
But today was a new year. We took a road trip to Avilon Zoo in Montalban because we wanted to see rabbits. At that time, I was still clueless that all breeders were exploiters. I just wanted to see rabbits. As we neared the end of our day long trek, we still hand't found rabbits. Apparently they were kept away from the public because they were almost eradicated by some disease. And so we were taken to some back area where there must have been 50-100 rabbits.
That's where we saw Lily. She was with a mother and other kids in a cage. But she looked at us and interacted. And she looked like a Little Eeyore (ergo Lily). So we took pictures and videos of this charming, skinny and extremely young rabbit. We moved on of course and I tried petting her father, Ricky in another cage. He promptly bit me. In any case, they were trying to repopulate and so none of the rabbits were for sale.
As we went home, we kept talking about Little Eeyore. As the following week progressed, we kept talking about Little Eeyore. By January 8, we made a decision to get her.
She wasn't for sale, but the caretaker did remember how much we doted on her. So we had her delivered to Avilon in Tendesitas the following day. We were there after lunch and waited long after they closed for her arrival. We were so anxious as we waited since we know how much travel can stress rabbits. When we got her, we were happy, excited and of course a little bit scared. It took us a few more hours to get home.
But when she did get home, everyone in the house was excited. Except Dexter. She was so used to being the only baby that she absolutely went nuts trying to attack Lily. She also completely lost her litter training. And this went on for many, many months for Dexter.
Lily, on the other hand, was every bit a baby. She was ran and jumped constantly. I brought her to my old room where she spent most of her play time (outside Dexter's disapproving glare).
But while she was a cute, happy bunny, it also became apparent very early that she was sickly. Within a month since getting her, the EC parasite manifested, resulting in a head tilt. At first we thought she was just being cute, but then she frequently lost her balance and kept falling. We even had to surround her cage with mats and towels to minimize the impact because she fell down a lot. In some cases, as she fell, she wasn't able to get up and therefore couldn't eat or drink. Thus, at least 3-4 times within the following month, we found her motionless and barely alive. Many times we had to infuse her with Mondex for a long time before she moved again.
Our evolution as bunny parents were equal parts research and experience. With Lily's frequent near death episodes, thus began our 24x7 coverage of the buns. When we went to work, my sister or my mom was there to watch her. Years later, it's really just part of our standard level of care. Never leave the buns for more than a few hours at a time.
Nevertheless, with a month-long treatment, she got past her health challenges and remained happy and playful. Many times, I would let her sleep on my lap. Still the EC forever left marks. Her head remained permanently albeit slightly tilted and her eyes, watery and a bit bulgy. Her one ear always stood up, making her look like a half lop many times.
In hindsight, we believe she already had EC when we got her, which probably means the entire colony had it. I can only hope some of them pulled through.
Lily was quite gentle even for rabbits. As a baby though, she did have a box inside her cage and she was super protective about it. When inside the cage, she can be extremely fierce if you tried to touch her box. Similarly, she hated being groomed and would attempt to bite you like a rabid dog if you tried (with tail suddenly going up). She was not one for hygiene I guess. If fact, we would often joke then that Dexter groomed for a long, long time, going through the ears, her feet and everything else she can lick. Meanwhile, Lily had a much shorter attention span, choosing to groom one limb only per session.
As rabbit go, Lily was very friendly. Even though Dexter never really warmed up to her, Lily never stopped trying to be friends. In fact she would frequently lie down outside Dexter's cage during her playtime, somehow oblivious that Dexter wanted to attack her.
In retrospect, Lily didn't have a long period of specialized attention like Dexter did. In 2016, our love for rabbits opened a dam. By May 2016, we rescued Daisy from her super awful living situation in Bioresearch; by October we did the same thing for Ethan (who also looked like Lily and Eeyore). By then, rabbit care had really taken on a 24x7 flavor and our supply boxes started to multiply.
At that point, we still had a cage + playtime outside set up. When in her cage, Lily always had a forlorn look as if to say, "Daddy, I want to play outside." Even then, it was also apparent she hadn't mastered litter habits. Her mats were frequently wet with urine and to be replaced several times in a week. While our other buns learned to bite their cages to demand playtime, Lily whacked her water bowl around instead. Like other buns, she also had a fixation for laying down beside the water bowl, but that almost always caused a spill. So for Lily, replacing the water also had to be done every few hours.
Lily grew up fairly low maintenance. Apart from her eyes that needed saline or antibiotic drops every so often, she grew up quite content and quiet. She was very happy when she was out on playtime. In fact, she gave so much of herself when running that she was exhausted by the time she stopped. Honestly it gave us quite a scare several times. As rabbit owners, we all know that our kids will react to pellets or veggies at any time. But for Lily, following playtime, she'll ignore any treat for at least half an hour. That's how tired she got.
From her 2nd to 3rd years, it was becoming apparent that her hormones were kicking in. For many reasons, she was the last bunny for fixing. But we just couldn't ever get around to it. But having an unspayed bunny does have benefits to the owner. At that point, she was learning how to follow when I walked around. She came when I called and allowed me to carry her around. Also quite amusing was how she left remnants of spray and poop all over when at playtime. But best of all was the loyalty and the
Lily 2
clinginess. When we sit down on the floor during her playtime, she would frequently squeeze beside our legs or arms once she done and wanted to rest. From there we could pet her indefinitely because she stayed content for such a long time. And we did that a lot at different times of the day, In time, Mommy even incorporated eye cleaning time during their bonding sessions.
From the time she was a baby to a day before her passing, Lily relished her play time. In truth, most of my bunnies probably had 2 or 3 running times in them at max. Lily, however, seemed ready to run at any time of the day. At her best, she'd run around the house 5-6 times a day.
In my mind, all I really want was to give my kids the best possible quality of life. And so I'd wake up every night after midnight so I can switch houses to make sure Lily and the other bunnies were okay, had hay and water, and of course had plenty of opportunities to run around the house. For rabbit owners, you've probably experienced that they become hyper near the 3 AM - 7 AM windows. If you want to watch binkies, those are good times to really let them play.
As mid 2018 rolled in and Ethan got sick with UTI and other diseases, we knew we had to make a change with the set-up. From cage + playtime outside, we transitioned to big pen + playtime outside. With about a 30 ft perimeter for her pen, Lily would run in circles at random times of the day. This is outside the 5x she would run outside. Such an athlete that one.
I guess this is partly why she remained quite lean. For almost a year, we tried to get her to reach 1.8 kg since she kept clocking in at 1.7 kg and below and felt a bit bonier than the rest (i.e. Carrie). At some point, we also noticed that her hay intake had gone down, although we couldn't figure out why.
For about 6 months from the end of 2017 to mid 2018, we bonded her with Ethan. They hit it off almost immediately and were always compressed beside each other. Sometimes they slept in the same small carrier when they in fact had their own carriers and lots of space around the pen. It was such a happy time for them and for us watching their wonderful relationship. After all, what is cuter than a bunny? A bonded pair of bunnies that look like twins!
During the Ethan period, Lily's eyes started looking better. That's because Ethan was such a dedicated groomer. She'd lick Lily's eyes clean. Sadly for Ethan though, Lily never did acquire good grooming habits and very rarely groomed Ethan back although he was clearly waiting for reciprocation.
Sadly we had to keep them apart when Ethan got sick and remained sick for the next 6 months. I suppose Lily got used to living alone again. But there was the antisocial Carrie next door. Things, however, did not happen as smoothly as you might think. In one very memorable episode, after I let them run around the house at 6 AM, I moved houses to clean up. Back one hour later, I was shocked to find Carrie missing. I found her in a tunnel on top of poor catatonic Lily. I don't know how long she mounted, but Lily couldn't fight back anymore. As it turns out, first she opened her pen, then she open Lily's pen. Mental note: lock the pens after leaving.
At times during 2019, it seemed like they would be friends though. Through pen bars, they would sometimes lie down beside each other. And during each one's playtime, they would make it a point to visit the other. But I also know it's impossible because Lily is unspayed and would forever be trying to hump. For some reason, Carrie has grown a lot more docile and attempted to be friends with both Lily and Ethan (when they visited him). When they interacted between pen bars, sometimes they snuggled nose to nose; but just as often, Lily lunged and bit of patches of white.
But despite not having a mate anymore, she still always had her playtime and she got tons of hugs and kisses from Mommy and Daddy on a daily basis. At those times, I knew she felt content.
As Lily matured, she developed what must be the hairiest dewlap I've seen. So apart from her wet eyes and upturned ear, she also developed a fairly messy wet dewlap. Every so often, Jean and I would take her to the car (to discourage movement) and would take pains to cut off her dewlap. She never liked it and always showed stress after, but it was that or get her neck skin infected. But she just had so much hair.
Towards the end of 2018, Lily's health started showing signs of wear and tear. We noticed that starting Oct or Nov, she would experience GI stasis every 3-4 weeks. We had lots of fears of course. We knew that an unspayed bun at that age becomes very susceptible to ovarian cancer. I first hoped it was just a manifestation of false pregnancy (i.e. instead of pulling out fur and acting like crazy, maybe she just stopped eating). But several months down the road, we had her x-rayed and the doctor found a kidney stone. And it suddenly made sense. From then on began the last long chapter of her life. She had weekly subq fluids injected. To her credit, it seemed like she was just shaking those off and remained quite the happy bun once we got home. At some point, she even started stepping out of the carrier during the car trips. The preventive action gave us a reprieve and her stasis incidents became few and far between.
To make sure she was hydrated and strong, we also upped her critical care and pellet ration to about triple our norm.After all, with the end 2018 episodes, she had dropped to 1.6 kg. We also gave her unli romaine lettuce for a while, but she wasn't really fond of them. We also got her fresh buko juice several times a week and she drank these happily. These all seemed to help. Gradually, we noticed her bulk up again. On our last weigh in, she already reached over 1.8 kg, which was, quite ironically, her peak weight.
On her last X-ray in June, the kidney stone seemed to break up. As can be expected though, her creatinine and other markers were a bit above normal. Still we openly hoped that the stones would break up even more, but there was also a very real risk that the stones would move and get stuck along the tubes. That would be an instant disaster.
Last Sunday seemed like a normal day. My wife went to the vet early to fall in line and I followed suit with Ethan and Lily in tow. She had her subq, some hair shaving and nail clipping. The session lasted a little longer than I expected, but I wasn't alarmed. When we got home and I put her in the pen beside Ethan (to visit), that's when I first noticed something was off. She wasn't sleeping, remained hunched, and ignored her pellets. I shrugged it off and cleaned. After all, post-vet stress is almost to be expected. When I put her back to her own pen about an hour or so later, that's when I really concluded something was off. She was showing stasis symptoms already. That was extremely unusual since subq actually almost always treats that condition. By nightfall, it was becoming apparent that she wasn't responding to any first aid treatment, which has never happened. No activity. No poop. No intake. Thus the day changed from normal to desperate in under 12 hours. By 1 AM, we had decided that it was time to bring her to the emergency vet for another subq dose. We had never done that before in all the bouts of GI stasis that we've encountered. This was ominously different. When we got home near sunrise and Lily now loaded with more fluids, there was still 0 improvement. It was becoming painfully clearer with every minute that there was no coming back from this episode. By mid morning, we drove her back for confinement already. She was going to need an IV line to survive this. But alas, stuck in Manila traffic for almost 2 hours, she had her first siezure in the car. And we cried and told her to let go. Not two years ago, Daisy died exactly the same way, also in a car
Lily 3
going to the vet. It was all so shocking. 24 hours ago, she was still playing normally. Now she's showing signs of death. Her rapid deterioration was so shocking and extremely hard to accept. As a father, what else could I do? I just kissed and hugged her non-stop while thanking her for the years with us and telling her I loved her so much.
By the time we reached the emergency room, she was already very weak. She showed some fight every now and then, but overall the situation was quite grim. When we were finally in the suite, it was wait and see. We planned on how to do our night rotations, etc. She hardly moved, but then again, I also thought we saw the last of her siezures for a while. After lunch I decided to go home to check on my other kids. But before I left, I asked Lily to please wait for me.
Within five minutes from leaving, my wife called and said Lily has been having aggressive siezures. And again the helplessness of it all made my heart ache over and over. When I arrived home, I had the quickes check and feeding before I rushed back. Through my back and forth rides, I just cried the whole way. What can I do? My baby was dying.
Post Script:
As we got home with her body later that night, my sister, who doted on the rabbits so much, and my mother, cried along with us.
The depth of our love is very much mirrored by the fact that our kids rely on us for their entire lives. That they are forever babies makes the love so much more intense.
To Lily, Dexter, Daisy, Eeyore, my childhood dogs Valiant, Igor and Engot, and all the other pets in my life, I love you all. Please wait for me. I will see you all someday. And although it's probably not wise for me to do so because I get so attached, I may still have to save some other animals in my life. But that's why Mommy is there. Someone has to keep me sane.
