Lilac is Beating The Odds....
Lilac was born on 5/7/2016. She was used by a rabbit breeder to have babies for 4 years. They then retired her from breeding and sold her on Craigslist, no questions asked whatsoever of the purchaser. Someone purchased her and brought her to BunnyPeople right away so she was not bought by someone else for breeding or worse yet, for meat. She came to BunnyPeople on 7/21/2020 and weighed 7.09 lbs. Her stools were tested right away as she had some gut gurgling sounds but tests came back negative for parasites. She was very frightened and timid. It took a while for her to come out of her shell. All the volunteers fell in love with her right away and she was surrounded with lots of love and attention. Her personality flourished and she took in all the attention and love she was given. She was spayed on 9/15/2020 without any complications. She continued to have gut gurgling but it became much louder and occurred more frequently. We took her back to the vet on Oct 6th and they ran a multitude of tests but could not find anything definitive. She had lost a little weight. She was given meds to treat any parasite she may have had but to no avail. She continued to lose weight and the gurgling became worse. She was tried on one more medication but then crashed and was hospitalized for several days. Her weight had dropped down to 5 lbs. Thankfully they were able to stabilize her and get her eating again. She had severe kidney failure and was discharged back to a BunnyPeople foster home requiring subcutaneous fluids twice a day. She has been seen weekly at our Vet office and they continue to monitor her kidney function which is back to normal and most likely was due to dehydration when she crashed and stopped eating and drinking. She continued with the gut sounds and we decided to have an abdominal ultrasound performed on her.
The Ultrasound revealed that both her kidneys are in good shape. She has fluid in her abdomen which is never a good sign. It is clear fluid which is better than if it was not clear fluid, but overall fluid is not good. She has a thickened area and also a stricture in her small intestines as well as some enlarged lymph nodes. There is no way to say for sure what is causing all this. It may be cancer and there is nothing we can do to treat that. It also could be an inflammatory response to previous parasites which will take time to resolve. We could do exploratory surgery but her odds of surviving that are very small given what they would need to do during the surgery. Even though our vets are VERY rabbit savvy and have extensive experience, the overall outcome with rabbits surviving surgery involving the small intestines and the cecum is very small.
Lilac is eating and drinking well and has increased her weight back to a little over 6 lbs. She is active and happy. Her fosterers are giving her lots of love and attention. Lilac continues to take it all in and thrives on it. BunnyPeople has decided to not pursue surgery at this time as it would most likely end her life or confirm there is nothing to do to cure her. Considering she spent all her life being bred by a breeder, BunnyPeople wants to let her live out the rest of her life in a loving home being spoiled and showered with love and attention. She continues to receive subcutaneous fluids and we are cutting the dose in half each week per our vet's instructions. She also continues with weekly bloodwork at our vet office. She takes all this in stride and has a strong will to live and we want to make each day even better than the previous day for her. She has an amazing personality and draws everyone in who meets her. You can't help but fall in love with Lilac when you meet her which makes this even more difficult emotionally for the volunteers at BunnyPeople but they are committed to give the very best to Lilac for as long as she has which we hope is a very long time!
To date, BunnyPeople itself has spent $1587.56 on Lilac's vet bills. A Volunteer generously paid for some of her other vet bills which are not included in this total.
Thanks to the Contributors:
- Anonymous - $50
- Jacqueline Canevari - $75
