I have had a lot of questions lately as to where I have been.
I felt you all deserved an explanation. See, my bunny died.
I went outside to give him an apple and some kale (lettuce stuff) and he
was looking kida dazed. So I tossed some water on him, and he still just
kinda looked weird. So I thought, OH! I'll give baby a bath. So I went in
and got a towel and wrapped him up and carried him into the garage sink and
filled it up with warm water. I stuck him in and all this brown stuff
started filling the water.
See, Ash (his name) had a digestive tract problem from an infection he had
a few years ago. He sometimes got poopies clumped under his tail because he
couldn't poop properly sometimes (diarreha).
So, like always, I reached under and began to scrub, and I thought "gee, he
feels kinda slimy... that's weird."
So I picked him up and looked at his backside.
There were two huge slits on each side of his tail, and thousands of
maggots were crawling out of him. Big maggots.
His skin ripped away suddenly in the back and thousands of the maggots
started crawling out of his muscles and his flesh, all of his muscles and
flesh was grey in the back.
I started screaming and dropped him into the water and tried to wash them
away, but more and more came out. His whole backside was dead, full of
maggots, and he was still alive.
It was the most horrible,horrible, horrible thing I have ever seen.
I got him into a basket and started screaming, I was so upset I had to be
sedated with a valium. My mom and I rushed him to the vet, but I knew he
was already half dead and that they would have to put him to sleep.
I felt so horrible, Merideth. I felt like I had neglected him or something.
It had only been 2 days since my Dad and I had last checked him, and he was
fine. It turns out that this infestation can happen in less than 48 hours.
I kept gagging and it was horrible. I couldn't even go in the room when the
vet looked at him, so my Mom had to see it, she was horrified too. Two days
before he had looked FINE ;_; !! The doctor said he had to be put to sleep,
that there was nothing anyone could do. They wrapped him up so I couldn't
see the maggots, and only his little head was sticking out of the cloths.
He was wonderful, I loved him so much. He was only four years old. Bunnies
are supposed to live to be 10 or so. I kissed him goodbye on his head, as
that was still okay. He looked so sick and half-dead... he wasn't bright
eyed and he didn't lick me like he always did. I was so awful.
The doctor told us that he must have had something go wrong internally,
because maggots only thrive on rotting flesh. He had a gangrene I suppose
and they ate the rotton insides ;_; We couldn't see anything because it was
all happening inside of him and he wasn't acting any differently because he
probably didn't know what was going on himself. There was no sign in his
cage when we got home of anything that would have let us know he was sick.
It was so awful ;_;. You can't even imagine how awful it was. He was my
bunny-baby ;_;.
The only good thing is that apparently if the flesh was dead, he probably
didn't feel much. Also, the maggots produce some sort of anthesization that
kills the pain, so he probably didn't feel them really either. He just felt
very, very sick, probably didn't know why he was sick, but just that
everything was geting more and more painful. My Aunt Sarah, who's a doctor,
told me that rabbits scream if they are in horrible pain. At least I knew
that he wasn't screaming. I'm glad at least that I found him in time to
have him put to sleep... it would have been so much more awful to find him
dead from the maggots and the gangrene. I'm glad I could ease his pain
before it consumed him.
And, although he was just a rabbit, I have had a lot of deep grief that I
can't express, and that I haven't felt since my cat Whitney died when I was
16 (7 years ago).
Please think of him, and hope with me that he found a happy green field,
free of harm, to lie in the sun and much all the grass, carrots, apples,
and lettuce he could ever need.
I haven't wanted to write, I haven't wanted to do much of anything. I have
been instead out looking for a job, and I finally got one at Intel, a good
job making a lot of money. I think I am starting to heal, but it's hard to
keep the memories out of my head and writing stories is just difficult
right now.
thank you for understanding,
marisa
mdprice@wenet.net
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