joe dane

I hate doing this... but our girl passed away. I am very concerned about
our other 5, and want to prevent what happened from happening again.

Yesterday, not my main vet called to say the blood-work was very bad,
and that there was no way to recover. She was very anemic, not a little,
and lots of other stuff. I have copies of the tests. Since this whole
experience had been really outside of what we have experienced I wanted
to know what went wrong. So I prepared to have her put her down so
a necropsy could be done. By the time I got to the vet 10-15 minutes
after talking to them, she was gone.

When they did the necropsy, they said she had died from a massive
infection. That her whole chest cavity was filled from an abscess. It was
not in any organ, just in the chest cavity. They are sending some material
to be tested, and will take a few days to get results. I don't really
understand how this can happen. Even though she was on Batril, they
said it could have never helped her. The x-rays didn't show it, and the
bloodwork didn't even show how critical she was.

On a normal day we are diligent about cross contamination, but when
any become ill, we become obsessively diligent. Changing clothes and
showering before we handle anyone else, and lots of alcohol. But there
are a few things I am scared about, and I don't get.

First: the vet said this had been going on for "a long time". What exactly
that means will find out later, I was in quite a bit of shock. They are
housed in our dining room which is open to all other parts of the house.
We can't go anywhere without walking past them. We watch them all
extremely closely, even to the point of feeding shredded wheat before
we go to bed so we can be exactly sure how long it has been since they
have eaten. Not some vague "they didn't eat kibble yesterday". She
never showed any signs of illness until she presented as stasis. When she
first started, we weren't even that concerned because she had eaten her
kibble by the end of the day and took treats before bed. She was acting
normally. Both Thursday and Friday, but we still started a stasis routine
to make sure things didn't stop. Up until this Sunday night she was still
even eating carrot tops. Mon morning, she could only be force fed.

I don't understand how she could be so ill, and still live for 10 days. One
day we would think she needed to be put down, and then later she would
seem to perk up. I don't understand how she could have an infection of this
kind. I am afraid we might have cross contaminated the others, because I
don't know exactly how long she was ill. The only things that were
remarkable
at the time was urination. She stopped for three days, and when she did
start
going on her own, I notice when we gave fluids that she became more
lethargic.
But she would pee and perk up. Her kidneys apparently were working fine
from the tests. Mon morning I was trying to get her to swallow and was
rubbing her stomach, and it would give that sound when humans drink a ton
of water. The sloshy sound.

I am trying to find out if there is anything I should have spotted but
didn't.

Thank you all so much for your help. I am sorry this is so long and
rambling.

I guess I am still in disbelief.

judith

I'm sorry for your loss. Rabbits have a most remarkable immune system
and can linger for a long time. They are also remarkably good at hiding
things from us when they are ill. You did your best and, unfortunately,
sometimes one's best isn't good enough. Rest assured your bunny knows
you tried.

jerseybunny

that is so sad.. i am sorry..
i too lost my phoebe fast without signs that was august. i still am
is shock over it..
hopefully the tests will give you the answers you need fot the others...

beth and her cute little fuzzbutts,

http://community.webtv.net/jerseybunny/bethsabsolutely
http://community.webtv.net/jerseybun...catsurehaslong

http://community.webtv.net/jerseybunny/MeetCalthebunny

arlette & cocoa

I'm SO SORRY about your bunn's passing. That is a shocker!

A lot of the symptoms make sense now.
When you gave fluids, it probably put stress on her organs: either the
bladder being full or the fluids putting pressure on the rest of her organs.

Abscesses are very common in rabbits in many parts of the body.
Did they culture the abscess? That would have been good to know what type of
bacteria it was. Had you known it was an abscess, you may have been able to
save her will bicillin injections. Abscesses are hard to treat in rabbits
because the pus is very thick and their body tends to wall them off;
antibiotics have a hard time penetrating them. Many people have had good
success with bicillin. Here is a link where you can read about this
treatment. http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jwmoo...n/bicillin.htm

What ever the bacteria was, I suspect your other rabbits have already been
exposed, but that doesn't mean any of them will get abscesses. There can be
any number of reasons why an infection takes hold.

You can clean the environment thoroughly, but I doubt the others will be
infected.

If it was the pasturella bacteria that caused it, most rabbits already
harbor this bacteria and don't become infected unless their immune system is
compromised in some way.

Again, I'm so sorry.
--
God Bless,
Arlette, Cocoa & Brownie in heaven (See us here
http://photos.yahoo.com/cocoa3c
Need a vet? Click here
<http://www.rabbitvet.net>

pugnose

I am so sorry for your bun having to go the bridge so soon. From reading
your post, your bun was with you at the time she passed? Those moments are
very important to most of us. I am sending positive vibes that your other
buns will stay healthy. My condolences to your family. Carla and my angel
Claire.

qtip

I am so sorry for your loss. Your heart must be broken.

Best Wishes,
Candice and Qtip

martha

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. We'll keep our fingers crossed that your
remaining five buns will remain healthy and happy.

Best wishes,
Martha

joe dane

I wanted to thank you all so much for your kind words,
and warm wishes. I'm just so sad about this. We worked
so hard to make her better.

joe dane

Thank you so much for this information. I was totally unaware,
and I am sure my vet is also. The vet who did the necropsy
said his bunny died from this exact thing, and that there was
nothing that could be done. So having this information is *so*
helpful. The outcome may not have changed, but it sucks to
know there was something else we may have tried. We thought
we had this whole routine down pat.

The vet did say that he was sending the pus off to be tested.
Though he said it was to see what would kill it. So I don't know
if that means it is being cultured.

I guess I am still confused as to how I should proceed if anyone
comes down ill. We had two sets of x-rays, and when I can bear
it I will look at my copies to see if I can spot anything, even though
the vet who did the necropsy said he looked at theirs and he couldn't
really see it. I am rather paranoid now. Other than a sudden death,
our others have died from a fairly controlled understandable causes.
Old age, one was in kidney failure, but lived for a year on sub-cue,
and was happy/fine until the last day.

Bowls we run through the dishwasher everyday, but I ran everything
twice on high heat. Bunny towels are quarantined. Will washing them
several times be enough? Because she wasn't using her box, she
ran though all of our bunny towels several times a day. Should I just
toss them?

Thank you so much. This one was so hard. I am trying to figure
out if all this is worth it. From a sadness level. They are so sweet,
but it just hurts.

pinktrixrabbit

I am sorry for your loss.

Lisa