I got a call from the vets at 12:00 this afternoon telling me that Katie has split her femur all the way up and that it would require extensive surgery to pin and repair, and that a surgical specialist would have to come to do it.
The X ray shows that she has very severe arthritis – she is apparently much older than the 3 year old bun we though she was, they estimate she’s at the very least 5 years old, and they think the arthritis has torn her leg bone in half.
They won’t amputate because the other leg is just as arthritic, and they won’t double amputate because they can’t take a “healthy” leg. Amputation would come to £500 per leg and she’d suffer a lot in the process.
The surgery would cost at least £1500 and on top of that, there would be the future problems from the untreated arthritis and the ongoing cost of complications, and the risk of using anaesthetic again.
She got a check up at the vets last week and they told me she was in good health. Now she’s at death’s door with this fractured femur.
We have had to make the very difficult decision to put Katie to sleep because she is in unbearable pain, she is hardly moving and she is suffering greatly. I don’t want to lose my marmalade princess, when I’ve barely had her for a year, but it turns out that she is an older lady rabbit. It seems weird thinking that about a 5-ish year old bunny when Cleo and Sebastian are both 10 and 1/2 and they’re still hopping around. And I was mentally prepared for either of them to die. But not Katie. I thought I had about a decade with her before we’d have to deal with this stuff. We were supposed to have more time!!! Fucksake.
Mostly I’m angry at her previous owners for doing the shit they did to her then abandoning her in a cardboard box. I’m angry that she never got her happily ever after, when she’s the rabbit of all of our buns who most deserved to be happy, because she’d gone through so much shit before we got her.
I don’t know how to tell Fifer. He has only known her for a year too and they’ve been so happy together.
I’m angry at the vet receptionist who just told me I couldn’t have my rabbit back before we put her to sleep. I want my rabbit. I want to stroke her nose and tell her it’s going to be okay and fix this all.
I can’t stop crying.
I feel so awful. I told her last night that we’d have her back and safe this evening, that the vet would make her better. Instead, we can’t do that.
I don’t want to lose my Katieboo. I just want this to not be happening.
I probably won’t update tomorrow even if my internet is working (unlikely).
I don’t know if this will get online or not.