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bun w/neuro symptoms

22 10:00:45

Question

Atty
Two weeks after the loss of my beloved 8yr old rabbit Atticus, I have major guilt pangs. I have amazing rabbit Vet who has cared for him his whole life. He recovered completely from a pretty bad case of head tilt about a year ago. Several months ago he developed a severe dental abscess involving jawbone- she did a few separate procedures to remove teeth & abscess, & debridements - to kill the anarobe? infection had long term abx, 1st oral then penicillin injections, plus daily flushing/packing. He was doing much better but one day began neuro symptoms beginning with slight head tilt, then rolling when trying to hop -like previous head tilt but worse and additionally, a bulging eye (this eye had bulged recently and then went away). Over 72 hours he gradually worsened - started Critical Care feeding & doubled Metacam dose, progressively his 3rd eyelid began to protrude. Of course this all occured on the weekend and Monday when my Vet was off so we spoke by phone Monday evening. By Tuesday morning when he stopped wanting to take syringe water/food & now his 3rd eyelid looked like a little shred of tissue paper in the corner of his eye and eye wasn't really closing. I left to take him to be euthanized. Turns out he had become dehydrated which made me feel horrible. My worry is this: he fell off 18" high couch when I ran to turn off oven, but ran back and saw him hopping off - he acted fine for next few days before onset of above syptoms. My Vet says brain involvement from his illness is more likely the cause & would expect earlier signs if head/brain trauma had occurred, but I can't shake the fear that if he hit his head when fell (hard wood floor and probably went down head first) it could have caused brain swelling or something - She wants to spare me this guilt although she admitted couldn't rule it out. She wants me to believe that his illness just took a turn for the worse. This is an agonizing uncertainty because either may have caused such symptoms and I will never know for sure. What is your frank & honest opinion based on these events? I didn't come out and ask my vet any more details. She warned me the day before we put him down that he might have siezures but he never did. Only a small amount of teeth grinding at the end - not loud but I don't believe it was contentment and hope that his discomfort very minimal. After everything he fought & came thru, the thought of momentary negligence on my part being the culprit is too much, but I guess I just need to go over it again with someone objective.

Answer
Dear Gina,

I'm sorry about the loss of your friend.  From what you've said, you and the vet really tried everything possible to save him.

And I do agree with the vet.  If the onset of the worsening signs didn't happen until 2-3 days after the injury, I *really* doubt that he hit his head hard enough to cause them.  You'd truly expect to see signs of head trauma within a few hours of the injury, not a few days.  A fall of only 18" would have to be really unlucky and on a really hard surface for him to be severely injured, and I think you'd know it very soon after it happened.

I know this doesn't bring Atty back.  But I can tell you from experience that we *all* have these terrible guilt things after a beloved bunny dies.  I'm not sure why we seem to *need* to blame ourselves, or at least consider that something we did (or didn't do) was the final straw.  

But you know what?  It almost never is.  And even if it is...what can we do?  This was Atty's journey, and you were lucky enough to share it.  But there is only so much we can do to save a beloved friend.  Ultimately, each of us is alive alone.

So please don't blame yourself.  The chances that he injured himself in that fall are really slim, and it's very likely that your vet is absolutely right about his illness simply taking a bad turn.  It does happen, and you did everything you could.

He was a very lucky boy to have such a loving mom.

take care,

Dana