Just Look For the Sparkle
Bun Bun was a brave
bunny soul that lost the use of her hind limbs. I met her while doing my small animal internship at the
University of PA Veterinary Hospital.
When my shift was over for the day, I would go through the wards looking
for hospitalized bunnies to see if I could give them any loving, tender,
personal attention before I left for the day.
I found Bun Bun in a cage with a blanket wrapped
around one of her hind legs. She
was trying to pull her stranded leg under her body and arrange herself in a
more comfortable position. I
opened her cage and gently moved her leg for her. I gave her nose rubs and a body massage and told her I was
sorry she was in the hospital. I
pushed her hay and pellets closer to her so she could nibble on some food, but
time was short and I had to catch my bus back to Allentown. I gave her a kiss
on the forehead and looked for her medical chart to see why she was in the
hospital. She was admitted
because she could no longer hop. Bun Bun was an 8-year-old spayed female house
bun that enjoyed walks in the park and traveling. Why couldn’t this happy, healthy senior girl use her
legs anymore? A battery of tests
was to be performed the next day.
Rabbits can have hind end
paralysis/paresis for many reasons, including arthritis of the spine/legs,
fractured back, slipped disc in the spinal column, spinal infection (spondylitis), and E.
Cuniculi (which is a parasitic protozoa).
Bun Bun had several tests to look for any of these ailments. She had blood work, Radiographs, a CAT
scan and even a spinal tap done.
Her diagnosis was Discospondylitis, which is an infection of the spinal
cord that infected a disc. She was
sent home with medication for the infection and orders for home physical
therapy. I worried and wondered
how she did.
A few weeks later, I saw flyers around the hospital
from someone seeking an experienced rabbit person to care for an elderly,
sickly bun while they went away on vacation. I, of course, called the number, and wouldn’t you know
it was the owner of Bun Bun!! She
was going on a vacation with her family that she had planned for months, and
wanted someone who knew what they were doing to take care of her baby.
I got the “job” and met Bun Bun again
in a few more weeks at the hospital.
She was in a large Tupperwareâ storage box. She no longer had any use of her hind
legs at all. L
I asked the owner about the physical therapy that was to be done and she
demonstrated some meager moves and said that it hadn’t helped. Her owner gave her a kiss good-bye and
left me with her differently-abled bun.
Once I got Bun Bun home, I looked her over. She seemed to be in good condition, she
wasn’t too depressed to be in her Tupperwareâ box.
In fact she had some sparkle to her.
But her joints were really stiff. It was obvious that her owner
didn’t work her joints and muscles well enough to keep her joints from
freezing. If you’ve ever
known a disabled person or animal, it is soooooooo important to work the joints
and muscles several times every day or they will contract down and become stiff
from lack of movement.
I carried Bun Bun everywhere with me at home. I had her with me while I studied on the floor, on the couch
while we watched TV and in the room while I was on the computer. I wanted to
make her feel as involved in life as I could. I manipulated her joints and
muscles every chance I could. I wanted to see if she could regain some movement
in her hind legs again. She was in a laying down position when I got her,
resting mostly on her rump. She
often tried to move, getting her front limbs under her and dragging her stiff,
lifeless hindquarters.
I had been working with her hind legs enough that I
got her limber enough to be frog-legged in the back end. Frog-legged is the
position I call their back legs out behind them, but not perfectly straight.
That gave us different positioning options for her. Again, if you have ever worked with a non-mobile person, you
have to be careful of bedsores.
Now that I had gotten her somewhat more limber – I could position
her legs differently to vary her level of comfort.
When I put her to bed at night, I placed her in her
Tupperwareâ box
that was sideways on the floor, so it was like a little house for her. This box was the only thing she knew
of, as home, so I wanted her to keep it. But now in the mornings, she was no longer in her box,
but elsewhere in the room. The
little determined girl had started dragging her body out of her box in the
middle of the night to see what else was out there to do!
OK, so this girl WANTED to move. Fine, I work with animals every
day. I could help her with
that. So I got a towel and placed
the little woman in a towel sling.
We do this in the Vet world all the time to assist sick animals to get
back on their feet. We started at
one end of the hallway, I lifted and supported her hind end, and off she
went!! She was motoring down the
hallway! Front legs worked
fine! She was elated!! Her little lop ears swung back and
forth, looking and listening to her surroundings as we walked!! She tired easily and plopped her front
end down for a rest every few feet.
But in a minute or so, she’d pop back up, wait for her hind end to
be supported, and started motoring again!! She was a mobile bun again! Now we made her WALK to the room we were sitting in. No more pitiful paralyzed bun. We made her walk and she wanted to
walk.
Her owner returned from her vacation and we made
plans to have Bun Bun go home. But the 9/11 tragedy took place. Bun Bun’s
mom had family in the towers. She
called and asked if I could keep Bun Bun a little while longer. I was sad to hear of her personal loss,
but was more then happy to keep Bun Bun a little while longer.
Also at this time, my small animal internship at the University of PA
Veterinary Hospital was ending and I had to move on to the University’s
large animal facility located in Kennett Square, PA for the second half of my
internship. This location was 2
hours from home, not commutable and the dorms wouldn’t allow pets. What was I going to do with Bun
Bun? She needed my care every day,
several times a day. Due to the
location of the lesion on her spine, Bun Bun could not urinate. She needed her bladder expressed a few
times a day!
This is where it’s nice to know bunny people!! Cathy, now a volunteer at our HRS,
offered to let me AND Bun Bun live in her home, only 20 minutes away from
Kennett Square, during my 3 month internship. I had bunny-sat for Cathy’s bun in the past and
we’d since become great friends.
So Bun Bun and I packed our bags and her Tupperwareâ box,
and off to Cathy’s house we went.
At Cathy’s house I towel walked Bun Bun as often as I could and we
started to discuss how we could get her moving without my help. I went to my internship every day while
Cathy went out shopping for items that could possibly become a wheelchair for
Bun Bun. She brought home toy
trucks, wheels from various objects and a skateboard. Cathy, her husband Clay, Bun Bun and I would sit on the
kitchen floor, brainstorming, trying to think of ways to get Bun Bun
mobile. It had to be comfortable,
lightweight (so she could move the chair too) and it needed to be something she
could rest her front legs in and not have to stand all the time. We started with the
skateboard. We took the wheels off
and got tiny casters. We tried 2 casters, we tried 3 casters, but 4 casters
worked the best. We hoped it wouldn’t be too heavy with FOUR
casters. We cut the skateboard to
size and eventually upholstered the entire thing. With some trial and error, innovation and persistence,
Velcro, glue, staples and a dish towel, Bun Bun had wheels that worked for her
if she wanted to walk and wheels she could just rest in!!!
I thought she was happy when she first started to
walk with the towel! You should
have seen her now! Zipping all
over the place with her new wheels.
Her favorite place to hangout during the day was under the dining room
table. Just think about this being down on her level. The table has 4 legs and all four dining room chairs had 4
legs. Bun Bun would weave herself
in and out of all those legs because she wanted to lay in the sunlight that was
streaming in the window. And every
time Cathy went to the refrigerator during the day, Bun Bun would maneuver
herself out from under those legs and wheel herself over to see if there were
any veggies coming her 
way! YES she knew where the veggies were kept – what bun
doesn’t? And of course, Cathy could NEVER resist her! Bun Bun even learned to release her
cecals and turn her chair around to eat them. This task got messy sometimes because she would run over her
cecals occasionally.
As
Cathy puttered around during the day, she would make several trips to the
basement. While in the basement
she could hear Bun Bun rolling around in her wheelchair upstairs, following the
sun, or maybe going to her food bowl for a snack. But one day she heard Bun Bun wheeling for a longer distance
then usual. When Cathy went to
investigate, she found Bun Bun had wheeled down a short hallway off the kitchen,
“jumped” herself AND her wheelchair one step and was now in the
family room wheeling around on the carpet looking for Cathy’s bunny
Watson! SIGHH – Nothing was
going to stop this girl!
Well, weeks turned in to months, and Bun Bun was
still living with me. My large
animal internship came and went, and I moved back home with MY little girl in
tow. She met and fell in love with
one of my buns, Floppy. The spent
a lot of time together. They ate,
rested, and groomed each other.
I
worked at a Vet’s office and took her to work with me each day so she
wouldn’t be bored or depressed.
Everyone was amazed with this bunny in a wheelchair. My coworkers laughed at how many
veggies she could eat. They would
feed her the “allowed veggies” that I packed for her in a baggie
every morning.
Bun Bun was doing great in her wheelchair. Then one day I noticed she didn’t want to move much in her wheelchair. I picked her up and examined her. She had a lump on her elbow. She NEEDED her front legs to wheel around. The lump ended up being an abscess and it was right on her elbow joint. The vet suggested surgery to lance and drain it, and possibly remove it. I was torn. She was almost 9 years old and been through so much already. I began to take her to work in a cat bed now because her front leg hurt too much to walk. She liked to sit and watch everyone buzzing through their day, stopping occasionally to feed her veggies, pet her and give her kisses. She was on antibiotics and I was still deciding what to do. Then I noticed her getting sicker and lethargic; she was too sick for anesthesia and surgery at this point. I kept her comfortable and one night when she was in a lot of pain, I had her put to sleep.
