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starahelm
56 years old
Gender Not Set
Nottingham, UK
Born Jan-16-1968
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History, Travel, Sci-Fi, Skiing, Ice Hockey, Reading, Languages, PC Games, Music.
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Joined: 25-September 03
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Last Seen: 14th November 2003 - 09:12 AM
Local Time: Mar 28 2024, 03:45 PM
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starahelm

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2 Oct 2003
I have been trying to come to terms with the sudden death of my little dutch bunny Peter from bowel cancer on August 14th this year, but as I've failed dramatically to recover I looked around and found this support site. It was very nice to see so many people who know what I'm feeling. I have had little in the way of understanding and support from anyone.
Even if I try to talk to my wife she clams up and says she too upset to talk about it.
Maybe I can't get over it because the house is chock a block full of memories of her (yes, Peter was a girl but we thought she was a he until a month old and decided to keep the name anyway). Maybe it's because I've had a two week holiday in Canada that couldn't be put off due to obligations, and then had to instantly start a new job when I returned to the UK. Mind you, I missed her far more once abroad and away from her cremation urn.
No, it's because we were so inseparable from the day I saw her in her little hutch at the pet shop. She hopped straight over to me and licked my nose through the bars. Since then we were always together. I'd get up in the morning and pop down to the kitchen to let her out of her hutch. We'd play until I had to leave for work and then I'd leave her with my wife. I'd sit all day at work with her in the back of my mind, and coming home was such a heart warming occasion, opening the door to find my little darling in the hallway waiting for a kiss. Then I'd sit in the lounge with her all evening, playing with her, or stroking her with one hand while doing necessary research for work with the other. No matter how hard a day it had been at work I always had my baby at home to return to.
Whenever we went on holiday one of my wife's friends would lodge at the house and look after the pets. I'd try to enjoy myself but would always be fretting about if something happened while we were away.
Then when I lost my job at the end of last year I was gutted, and tried very hard this year to find another, but at the same time I was happy to be able to spend so much more time at home with my babies.
I suppose the trouble with some animals is that they purposefully hide any signs of illness as in the wild they would be singled out by a predator. When one of our cats gets ill we tend to know about it straight away, but rabbits don't show it until it's too late. We did everything we could to ensure a long and happy life for Pete - she had the best food, a huge three storey hutch for nights or when we were out so the cats could use the catflap, she had tons of toys, access to the whole house, a garden area meshed over for safety, a lot of love and attention from both of us, she was spayed when she was one year old, and had regular visits to the vets to have her nails cut. Each time she went the vet would examine her eyes, ears and teeth and each time she would come away with a clean bill of health.
The last time this happened was only about six weeks before she fell ill, so you can imagine my total shock and devastation when, upon noticing her looking a little thin on Monday 11th August and finding that for the first time she wouldn't eat anything offered, we took her to the vets and the vet found a large hard lump in her gut. We brought her home and took her back the next morning for an exploratory operation. I kept hoping the vet would phone with good news but he called saying she was riddled with cancer - it was all over her intestines and had started on her bladder. We had her back for one last day with us where she just cuddled up to me with such a sad, regretful expression, as though she was saying she knew she was dying and was so very sorry and heartbroken herself. Then on Thursday morning we let her say goodbye to the places she loved the best in the house, and then took her down to the vets for one last visit. As he prepared the mixture for the injection she snuggled into me and licked my face frantically as I kept telling her how much I loved her, and then, as the needle went in, she gave my one last sorrowful heartbroken stare and suddenly she just went limp in my arms and was gone. She was only two and a half years old.
We brought her body home wrapped in a blanket and arranged for the crematorium. We had to keep her in the fridge for a couple of days before she could be taken there due to them being booked up, but for me there was some comfort in having her body at home. I could still visit her every now and again to stroke her forehead. It was the hardest thing of all to leave her at the crematorium. I knew when I returned to pick her up in the afternoon she'd be a little wooden box of ashes. Now she sits at my side in the lounge in the evening, and at night she sits on my bedside table, always within stroking distance, and I know I feel some comfort in having her 'still with me', but since that day my life has felt like a nightmare I can't wake up from. I keep hoping I'll suddenly sit up in bed with a different feeling inside, like I've had a very disturbing dream, and race downstairs to find my baby at the door of her hutch wanting a cuddle, but I know it'll never happen. I feel like the rest of my life is a black tunnel stretching a long way into the future, with a tiny pinprick of light at the far end - that being when I too become 'transformed', and am sat beside her. Everything I am normally interested in has become shallow and fails now to stimulate. I seem to trudge through each day as if ticking off the weeks of a long prison sentence. All I can do is hope her spirit is still with me. We have had a number of funny things happen since she died that definitely had a rabbit signature to them but I'm not sure this is the place for such talk. I never used to believe in anything following death until two of my wife's cats died within a fortnight of each other three years ago. The amount of times they've been seen since, or I've felt a cat rubbing against my feet only to look down and see nothing... well, let's just say once or twice recently I've had a bunny nose dob me hard on the ankle as if asking for attention, but there was nothing there!
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16 Jan 2012 - 1:05

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