Over the River and Through the Woods

Thank you to everyone who has emailed, tweeted, commented and texted about Mario.  We really appreciate all of your concern and good thoughts.

Today has been a bit of a roller coaster of a day.  I called the vet's this morning and spoke to the vet tech.  She told me that they had force fed Mario last night but that this morning he refused to have anything to do with any of that.  He had not pooped or eaten on his own.  He peed once and his temperature was still good.  Basically, she said he was the same and that the vet would give me a call once she evaluated him.

The vet called shortly after and said that his stomach was still very engorged.  Also, she had gotten his lab results back and Mario was in renal failure.  She said she thought it was acute vs. chronic because he was not anemic which I should take as a good thing.  She said it was not uncommon for bunnies to go into acute renal failure when they are as severely dehydrated as Mario was due to his inability to eat/drink.

Because of his lack of progress on bloat treatment, she suspected that he may possibly have a blockage somewhere.  She said there was no way to know for sure and that surgery at this point would be exploratory.  We could possibly do barium x-rays to try to image a blockage but she felt that with his engorged stomach this wasn't the best course of action, plus it would waste a day's worth of time.  She said if there was a blockage, today was the day to do the surgery or else his digestive tract could go necrotic and then there would be little hope.  Without the surgery, he would surely die.  "If this were my bunny, I'd do the surgery," she said.

The vet said she wanted to consult with another veterinarian in the practice who had handled a similar case and had done some research on the matter.  She said she would be in touch in a few hours and we could go from there.

The idea of poor Mario going through surgery with no guarantee that it would address the problem was too much for me.  I was a wreck and I called Boyfriend.  We decided if the second vet agreed, then we would pursue the surgery.  I asked Boyfriend to come home from work so he could come in with me to visit with Mario before he went under.  There was no way I'd be able to handle that on my own.

I had some time to kill and a run on the schedule so headed out to do that.  I had to fight back tears through my warm-up and almost gave up on the tempo portion.  I felt like my heart-rate was elevated from the anxiety and it was throwing everything off.  The tempo effort eventually helped to get my mind off things a little and I ended up with a pretty good run.  I arrived home and promptly burst into tears.

The veterinarian gave me a call and said she had good news.  Mario had started to feel better and had nibbled on some hay. She also felt that his stomach was dramatically reduced in size from her examination of him this morning.  She didn't feel that surgery was the way to go anymore.  I was so relieved.  She wanted to start him on an IV in order to try to get his kidneys back to normal.  She felt that as long as he continued to improve, she would redo his blood work in a day or two and if his kidneys were better he would be ready to come home.

Mario with his fancy new earring :(

We went in to visit with him.  He looked pretty out of it, and I'm hoping that was from the meds he was on.  He tooth purred a little as I rubbed his cheeks.  When the vet tech brought him into the room I saw he had three nice poops stuck to his butt :) I was SO happy!  I had brought some of his hay and pellets from home and he even ate a pellet I gave to him.  He perked up for a minute or so while he ate the pellet and actually lifted himself to standing for a while.  But right after that he went back into his foggy state.  The staff wasn't even aware that he was pooping yet and they seemed excited when I told them.  So he's making progress.  Eating a little, pooping a little, and getting rehydrated.

The vet said he is no way out of the woods yet, but she is much more encouraged than she was when she spoke to me this morning.  I'm really hoping he continues in this direction and can come home soon. I probably won't get to see him again until either Thursday evening if he comes home or Friday.  The staff seems to be really enjoying him so I hope they are giving him lots of love.