The funny bunny story has ceased to be funny. It has been a really ROUGH four days at our house. We brought Zanipolo home from her surgery Wednesday afternoon. She did not eat, drink or have any bowel functions. When I tried to call the vets office I found that they were already closed. My call was directed to animal emergency clinic. They did not have a clue and advised that I wait until morning to contact the vet.
I got a hold of our regular vet Thursday morning. She advised us to begin force feeding Zanipolo using syringes of baby carrots, yogurt and water every hour. That afternoon we went to vet where she got a shot to help stimulate her appetite as well as an anti anxiety medication. The day went well but the feeding regiment was pretty intense and still not a sign of bowel function. She urinated only once.
Friday morning we found her incision open and were back at the vets by 8:00 A.M.. The vet who had done the surgery was having surgery herself so we saw a different vet who attempted to glue the incision back together. After we got home we wondered if an e collar would be helpful to keep her from bothering the incision. I drove back to the vets office to get the collar. When I got home and went to put the collar on and feed her, we saw that the incision was once again open. Back to the vet for our third trip that day. The vet put in stitches and we attempt the e collar as well as a body sock. The e collar did not go well at all so it was left off! Once the body sock was on she seemed to leave it. We started giving her fresh pineapple juice and continued feeding and watering through the syringes every hour. We also started antibiotics. She did great all day and by evening we noticed bowel function! We were all very excited! That evening we observed that she had started pulling on the cotton body sock so Mr. fitted the e collar and put it back on her. She did great with the e collar and body sock through the rest of the evening; eating and drinking and pooping. At 1:00 a.m. when we headed to bed she was doing fine.
When we got up this morning we were greeted by a rabbit who did not have an e collar on and was missing her body stocking. Out of six stitches on 5 were left. Back to the vet again this morning! Our original vet is back to work and she felt like Zanipolo had had a reaction to the glue. Basically, she is allergic to it. She did not want to stitch it up since bunnies do not like that and at this point she was concerned about abscesses developing. Instead, she decided to continue the antibiotics and leave the wound open. She put gauze on it and then wrapped the body with a sticky wrap material. We are now going to have to have twenty four hour supervision to make sure that she does not bother this wound! The good news is that with her eating and drinking on her own and bowels functioning we can stop the intense force feeding! I am going to continue the pineapple juice today to keep things moving.
Any volunteers for the midnight to 6 A.M. shift?
