Sunny Gone but not Forgotten

Chalkboard readers,

I'm sure that almost all of you already know, but I wanted to share with those that didn't that Sunny lost his fight with E. Cunniculi this past week.

Holly and I made the tough decision to put Sunny to sleep on Tuesday evening. While his head tilt had improved (and was largely cured), he had lost a lot of weight in the process. He was starting to put some of the weight back on, but then started having trouble eating and digesting. Over the Memorial Day weekend, he lost all of the weight that he gained back and then some. After completely losing his appetite, we took him to the vet on Tuesday where they ran some blood tests. His kidneys had completely shut down (the readings were off the charts), and outside of bunny dialysis, there would be no stopping the inevitable from happening. The E. Cunniculi that Sunny had attacks the brain and the kidneys, among other organs, and while he was able to fight the parasite in his brain, the kidneys did him in.

He was a fighter to the end, but the odds were stacked too
much against him.

Our friend Ryan was visiting over the weekend, and Sunny had a particularly good day on Saturday before things got bad. We took this opportunity to get Sunny out of his pen and let him run around the living room--one of his favorite things to do. He ran around for a bit to stretch his legs, then as always, gravitated back to us for head-pats and attention. Ryan captured these pictures of Sunny's last "good" day. I post them to show how much of a fighter Sunny was--how he was largely improved from his earlier pictures (in terms of head tilt), and to put some closure to the 4 and a half years Sunny was a happy member of our little family.

Sunny: "Don't count me out yet!"

Sunny has been showing slow, but steady, improvement consistently over the last 5 days or so. Every morning after we feed him, we've been placing him on a towel on the floor (outside the protective confines of his box) just to see how he would do without something to rest against. At first, he could sit for about a minute before falling over... then he started sitting comfortably, but not daring to move. On Friday, he started balancing on 3 feet and licking and cleaning his paw.

This morning, I sat Sunny on his towel, and as soon as his feet were on the ground, he was taking a couple of short steps. Surprising both of us, he stopped, looked at me, and then took off across the living room! Granted, he was weaving and moving slow and unbalanced, but he managed to thump the floor once he made it across the room.

He thumped three times, and looked at us, almost as if to say "stop feeding me that food and get me out of that box!". Well... he is no longer in the box, but he'll be getting fed twice a day for the next week or so until he starts eating on his own a little better, and he will be taking his medicine for probably the rest of his life.

We wanted to put a few pictures up now that he is a little bit better, so you can see how he is doing. He has a long way to go (he is still pretty tilted), but he has clearly turned the tide.

Thanks for all of your well wishes--Sunny is firmly in recovery!

A Sick Bunny

Sunny the Funny Bunny is not having such a good time of things... last Monday (the 14th) we noticed his head tilted slightly to the left. We got him out of his pen to see how he hopped around, and his coordination was clearly starting to go.

E. Cunniculi had struck again... but we were prepared.

First thing the next morning, we called the vet in Columbus and had Sunny's records faxed to a vet here in Westminster. That afternoon, the vet saw Sunny and verified our suspicions--the parasite was back. Armed with a handful of medication--antibiotics and his favorite Benzadole medicine--Holly headed home with our sick rabbit.

Things went downhill fast. By the end of the evening, Sunny could no longer control himself, and when he wasn't flipping, he was laying flat on his back. We cleared out his pen, got him into a box lined with towels, and settled in for the long hall. The box keeps him from hurting himself, gives him four easy walls to lean against, and also gives him absolutely nothing to do but lay around and sleep.

Besides laying in his box, Sunny has been routinely getting 3 feedings a day of "Critical Care"--an "add water" food/paste that he absolutely hates. We've been keeping up on this and monitoring his weight closely (we inadvertently were underfeeding him last time). Unfortunately, his condition continued to get worse.

Last time it took Sunny a full month to recover, but with us reacting quickly, it seemed that his decline started to slow down over the weekend. This was good, because he couldn't get much worse.

Around Tuesday, I was thinking that perhaps Sunny wouldn't make it this time... then the amazing started to happen. He started getting a little more active, started to stand up a little straighter, and started to perk up a little bit. He's starting to eat again a little bit too (if we hand-feed him so he doesn't have t search for it). He's also standing unassisted in his box... although if we take him out of it he is unsure of himself and rolls into a ball.

The poor guy has been through a lot again, and he is nowhere out of the woods yet, but he is showing that he wants to fight, and is even playing around in his box a little bit to pass the time. I think between us catching it early and knowing exactly how to take care of him, we just might be able to save our little rabbit one more time!

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes... especially the cards from Mom and Jenn! We show them to Sunny, and he actually is looking at them now (probably wondering how they would taste).

We don't like posting pictures of Sunny when he is sick, but with a little bit of luck, we hope to post pictures of a happy and recovering rabbit in a couple more weeks!

New Sunny Pictures

Sunny is doing well in his new home. He is set up in the middle of our family room so he is certainly still the center of attention!

Here he is as he stretches his legs in our living room and dining room.

Sunny