Could I have saved him?
Maybe, if I had fed him more honey water, maybe, if I had been there more to encourage him, to give him the will and strength to live on. Maybe I could have spotted the signs earlier and prevented it.
The vet said it was Wry Neck, and that he had accidentally hit the stem of his brain on something hard. Poor Rabbit had a floppy neck, a weepy eye, and kept thrashing and rolling around so violently that I feared for him. Frustrated as he was, he still had the heart to kiss me.
I followed the vet's instructions, I awoke early every morning to feed him his antibiotics through a syringe, I dripped honey water into his little mouth drop by drop, I cuddled and stroked him and kissed his cheek every day. My heart ached, but there was nothing else I could do.
It gave me a fear of the Nervous System, I found myself afraid of the brain and other components. Tonight, on the bus, it suddenly occurred to me that I never knew much about Wry Neck, so I looked it up on the internet.
Wry Neck is an immune disorder caused by protozoa (microsporidia) that resides primarily in the kidneys in many (if not all) rabbits. When the immune system is compromised, the parasite replicates (by injecting spores through a polar filament into the host cells) and begins to migrate from the kidney through the bloodstream to the brain where it develops cysts.
My dearest Rabbit, are you still here?
Maybe, if I had fed him more honey water, maybe, if I had been there more to encourage him, to give him the will and strength to live on. Maybe I could have spotted the signs earlier and prevented it.
The vet said it was Wry Neck, and that he had accidentally hit the stem of his brain on something hard. Poor Rabbit had a floppy neck, a weepy eye, and kept thrashing and rolling around so violently that I feared for him. Frustrated as he was, he still had the heart to kiss me.
I followed the vet's instructions, I awoke early every morning to feed him his antibiotics through a syringe, I dripped honey water into his little mouth drop by drop, I cuddled and stroked him and kissed his cheek every day. My heart ached, but there was nothing else I could do.
It gave me a fear of the Nervous System, I found myself afraid of the brain and other components. Tonight, on the bus, it suddenly occurred to me that I never knew much about Wry Neck, so I looked it up on the internet.
Wry Neck is an immune disorder caused by protozoa (microsporidia) that resides primarily in the kidneys in many (if not all) rabbits. When the immune system is compromised, the parasite replicates (by injecting spores through a polar filament into the host cells) and begins to migrate from the kidney through the bloodstream to the brain where it develops cysts.
My dearest Rabbit, are you still here?
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