Ok so i posted awhile ago about my rabbit having a sore eye.
Well the last two weeks were the worst weeks of my life.
My rabbit Takhisis of Darkness became sick and nearly died.
I had to make big decisions based on guess work that did save his life but were very hard at the time because they could of cost him his life.
Takhisis of Darkness is my baby brother and also he is a rabbit. He is jet black, mongrel, buck rabbit (fully equip male) with a very cute flat bunnyish face although his super flat face does cause him some problems. We got him as a baby from a regular pet store when I was 13. I am now 20 nearly 21 and he is 7 1/2. Although hes just a little baby to me hes quite old for his species. Vets do not like to operate on them after age 6 because as small animals anesthesia is dangerous anyway but at old age they often never wake him and die under the anesthesia for no reason at all.
Takhisis has an older brother Pierre who is my younger brother and a cat and my life companion. He is a siamese lilac point, neutered male, who seems to have developed the same temperment as me, he is like me in almost everyway. We got him on my 5th birthday, I don't remember life before him at all. He is now 16, reasonably old for a pedigree and has early stage kidney failure but my decisions to take him to vet when I noticed tiny changes in him (no one else thought we should take him they thought we should wait and see) meant they caught it very early as it was just starting and a change in his diet brought him back to life. He is healthy and young acting many months later. This won't last at some point slowly his kidneys will shut down and he will die it could be years or less. I hope it is years and he dies of old age first but he has been my companion and brother my whole life to loose him would destroy me.
Anyway both my pets are old and I'm still young so had them from young ages and they are my whole life, I've never lost before or had much of a life without them. I grew from child to adult with them, i grew up with them their my brothers. more than that i love them more than anyone could love family because they are innocent.
So as Pierre is old and i know what the future brings and since takhisis was 5 and vet misdiagnoised him and lied to us i live in fear of their death not trusting anyone.
So i made a post about my rabbit having a sore eye. It looked bad and arrived suddenly from no where he had it for near a month and seemed to feel no pain. Then during my essays he became sick. I was home to complete the essays as i work better there they were due on thursday i had alot to do and it was monday. Instead of running around takhisis lay down.he rarely lays down. he doesn't sleep much ever you see not like other bunnies he never lays his head on the ground. but he lay down alot and seemed unresponsive. i panicked obviously. he seemed listless and to have trouble going to the toilet. we didn't trust vets and didn't wan to take him. last time the stress nearly killed him let alone the incompetant vet and now he is old his heart is weaker. so maybe he had a cold. we waited. he started grooming alot obsessively, lying down alot, making funny noises not happy grunts something else and he seemed to be sneezing. But the toilet problem went away and he was still eating so maybe it was nothing, sure he lay down alot but he still ran and played too but then he went off his food. hes normally so greedy and each day he ate less until he ate nothing. he would only eat treats but he was still eating treats. I had to take him to vet so i did. we let him play free on the grass for first time in his life so he could have fun if he was to die. he loved it and ran fast everywhere skipping, digging, jumping. you wouldn't of guessed he was ill which made me insane thinking i was making wrong decision to take him and that i would be murdering him by taking him to the vet. (oh we aren't evil we don't keep him shut in a pen all the time he has a large pen like a bird aviary originally built for cat with a hutch inside so he can run free in there and an indoor hutch for sleeping in at night and an open hutch in the dining room and he runs free indoors with us in mornings and evenings. )
So we took him. in his night hutch we put in boot of car so he'd feel safe. he hates being in a moving car. it was awful i watched him the whole way. he kept falling over because of movements of car. i cut my hand trying to stop lid of his cage from rattling and scaring him and suceeded in making my self very very car sick. Got to vets, put him in smaller cage pet carrier-he did not like this one bit. we waited to see vet and then went in, different vet from ones 2 1/2 years ago and different from ones who did blood test on pierre and hurt him and wouldn't let us hold him. This vet was very kind. At first he didn't believe us that Takhisis was scared because of slippery table (he is terrified of slippery surfaces) but after the mega brutal fight he gave the vet when the vet tried to touch him, i nearly collapsed with fear he'd have a heart attack. The vet let my mum hold him and was amazed by how calm he went. Of course takhisis would not let the vet look in his mouth, he clamps down with a jaw strong like a crocodiles you can't imagine it from such a little bunny. so vet thought he was just grumpy bunny. but he let vet take his temperature, vet was amazed. who lets you shuve things up their bum but not look in their mouth! he wanted to check the eye but was scared to frighten takhisis. we told him all about what happened with pierre and the vet 2 years ago. he looks up the records and the old vet lied to us! takhisis never had teeth growing into his brain at all but just mild dental decay back then! and turns out that growing into your brain thing is extremely rare not common like he said! this vet was very kind and let me do the procedure to put dye in takhisis' eye. thats how we found he had a massive ulcer on his eye caused by exterior damage. Probably jumping off roof of his hut and banging into metal pen. he gave us anti biotics we left.
Takhisis did not get better he got worse and stopped eating all together all he could eat was grapes and drank alot of water. I had stayed 5 nights in total because of his illness but went back to liverpool thinking all was well, fortunately i came back the next day as my partner had flu so wanted to go home for his birthday. instead of being with him at his parents i stayed at takhisis' side. he was very unhappy i could tell. but he wasn't hot or panting or shivering in fact i thought i heard his tummy growl but he was in pain. I had no choice i made the decision he would have an operation even at his age i couldn't let him starve to death it'd be better to die asleep. I hugged him thinking i'd never see him again and went back to liverpool only to return the next night again as mum booked operation for tuesday.
I came back and once again we let him play on grass......and he made a break for it, ran straight across garden and jumped off wall headed for drive way, it was impressive for someone supposedly so ill you can imagine the acrobatics i had to do to catch up to him and stop him. So we took him to vets again and left him believing we would never see him again.
But the kind vet rang us from operating room told me i was right it was his teeth and we did right thing with operation. takhisis dumbass that he is had for two years only been chewing with one side of his mouth! all the teeth on that side were rotted or wore down to nothing and the teeth on other side had grown so long he couldn't get food between them so he couldn't eat and they were sharp and cutting him. So i was right. now all he had to do was at age 7 live through anesthetic. of course now operation would take much longer and he'd be under much longer. the vet removed rotted teeth and shaved down long ones. at 4 o clock (we took him in at 11:30) they rang. He had come through anestetic beautifully with a strong heart of a much younger animal.....and in true takhisis style had bursted the water bottle the gave him to help bring him round.
He survived and has recovered well and is back to his old self in fact he didn't even take a few days to recover and heal like they said he was eating hard carrots the very next day. unfortunateky if these teeth wear away he will have to be put to sleep as he will have no teeth left and would starve but luckily this won't be for a while and by that time he will have lived very full rabbit lifespan.
I'm so happy and my decisions saved his life cas you know mum never makes any about vets (no nastiness meant to her but i felt i was one who made all decisions that saved him and she did little in that department but she did struggle unwaveringly to give him his meds)
so both my brothers are alive and well for now and the worst two weeks of my life are over. I can't wait to go home and see them again next week.