My Poor Sweet Coal

Where to even begin :(

So on Monday morning my vet phoned me about Coal's wet chin. He wasn't too worried, there are lots of potential reasons. The worst of which would be an abscess in the back of her mouth. He said they'd need to sedate her and do a scope exploration ... bunnies aren't really good with opening wide to let you just take a look. But he said it wasn't too urgent. Although there is nothing we could do if that was the problem, there really was nothing, whether we caught it sooner or later. I planned to take her in on Tuesday evening and leave her there for Wednesday so I would have more time on Wednesday evening (since I don't have boot camp that evening) to chat with them when I collected her. Life had other plans.

After Boot Camp on Monday evening, I let them out the hutch. I picked Coal up to check if her chin was wet ... I was still trying to figure out if it was just perhaps when she'd been outside and munching on wet grass or succulent plants. I noticed she seemed to have wet herself ... which is very weird for a bunny, I've never really experienced that with any of them before.

I let them out and went to shower. Afterwards I started dinner and went to check on them. I noticed that her right hind leg seemed to be a little "slow". I dunno quite how to describe it. It wasn't quite like she was dragging it and it was entirely limp ... but it was definitely sluggish. I went into a panic, I won't lie. It was about 18h25 and my vet closes at half past.

I phoned to say I was on my way, wait for me! There was a bit of discussion about this ... but eventually they said fine, come thru. Rex & Lily were easy to hutch. I locked the house up in a spin and raced to the vet.

My normal vet wasn't available and the guy I saw definitely thought I was being a crazy-bunny-mom. He couldn't see anything wrong with her. Obviously she is a prey animal and was covering her weaknesses in a foreign and stressful environment. But I knew something wasn't right. I left her there.

On Tuesday I didn't hear from the vet till about 3pm. They'd done the mouth scope and all looked fine, except for a little abscess on her tongue that we'd seen on Saturday. They were giving her antibiotics. They hadn't seen her limp all morning. But in the afternoon, the vet took her out onto the grass and he saw exactly what I'd been talking about. He was a little worried. I asked if they could have strokes. It was a possibility. But he said he'd X-Ray her leg to find out if it was a fracture or bone degeneration. They'd be keeping her another night.

It was raining when I got home on Tuesday so I skipped Boot Camp and went swimming at the gym instead. On my way home I decided to pop in and visit her. I assumed she was still drugged from the X-Ray (they're not so good at sitting still for these things). She didn't respond to me, she could hardly lift her head and couldn't seem to control her front legs.

I cuddled with her for a bit, but she seemed completely out of it, so I left. I didn't get to see the vet, he was busy with a consult.

Yesterday morning he phoned. Coal had died overnight :( *sob* She hadn't been drugged from the X-Ray. They hadn't bothered to do one because by the time they were about to she was showing additional symptoms confirming it was neurological, floppy bunny syndrome. In all likelyhood, it was the same parasite that killed Bell & Henna 4 years ago, Encephalitozoon Cuniculi.

My poor sweet friendly Coal. I left work early yesterday. I bundled Lily & Rex into the car and took them to the vet. They've been started on a course of Panacur again. I am terrified for them now. I cleaned and literally hosed down the hutch yesterday afternoon. Lily was quite out of sorts all evening.

I am gonna miss this bunny, a lot. She was the friendliest of all of them. She'd come up to me and climb all over me. She wasn't afraid of people like the other 2 are. Admittedly, they've been cuddled and held far more yesterday than they're used to too.