And so it was with heavy heart that I walked with my little Son, Moon, and Stars™ in Ellen Scholz's All Creatures Veterinary Care Clinic. I knew we had an uphill battle, fighting an infection that had affected Niblet's skull, so I was prepared to hear bad news.
Boy, was I wrong.
Indeed, Dr. Scholz was surprised at how fast and how well Nibble's incision has been healing! She then cleaned out the fake-ear opening she made, pulling some hair and some scabby stuff out of the site. Then she flushed the wound: NO PUS! Niblet's beating the infection! Everything came out clear, and we're on the road to a full recovery!
I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear this; I became giddy, joking with the doctor about how strong my little man is, how he can poop more poops per hour than any other bunny known to man! How he can eat a carrot faster than a speeding bunny! How he can put a hole in my shirt lickety-split with one nibble! I was so happy.
So here's my sweet bun, back home from the vet's office, having a little treat because he was such a brave boy:
He didn't have to be put under anesthesia or anything for the stitch removal; they just held him and he was very brave about it, barely even flinching. That's my tough little guy!This morning, I squirted his antibiotics onto his pellets and he ate them up like a good boy:
So you can see where he's bald still, the affected area from the surgery. And the little red spot is where he has his fake-ear opening. I asked Dr. Scholz about what the goal is, and she said we'll keep him on his Baytril for another week, plus there's this steroidal ointment I have to squirt into his fake-ear opening once a day for a while, and then we have to go back for another check-up in two weeks (and she'll file down his molars--more on this later). Ideally, everything will still be clean, and the hole will be there to release any kind of drainage from his inner ear etc., and then he'll be a normal little bunny! (or as normal as a cute-as-a-button earless bunny can be)The molars thing: His front teeth are actually fine--he's been eating his hay and his fruit-wood sticks and stuff, and he's fine. But apparently, bunnies' molars don't meet flush and so where there's no meeting (and thus grinding down), the molars tend to get a little "peak" on them. This must be filed down from time to time. So that's what she'll do in two weeks.
The best thing is that I finally had a night where I didn't suffer from the reflux I've been having for the last two weeks or so. I'm weird with stress; my mind and my emotional well-being are rarely affected by stress. My body, on the other hand, shows stress like a badge of honor, with searing pain in my neck or shoulders, or the old standby gastro-esophageal reflux. That's always fun. I actually threw up the night before the appointment, it was so bad. But last night, happy and with Nibble munching his hay contentedly, I slept well and without too much pain.
We still have our check-up in a fortnight, but I'm confident that things will be fine. Niblet and I will take good care of his little fake-ear opening, and we'll watch Buffy on DVD, and we'll welcome the coming spring together while we listen to the Ella Fitzgerald CD that Lynne, that sweetie and lover of turkey vultures everywhere, sent us to show she was thinking of us:
It even has one of our favorite songs, "It's Only a Paper Moon!" Once again, all is right with the world.Well, except for the fact that we had snow flurries this morning....
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