#Lahi Bunny

[laholatva]

The Chinese new year is this weekend so I’m not too late for Year of the Rabbit picture.

[lahi-n-delilah]

I was in the reception of the OVC today when a staff member walked in to speak to client services. As she passed me, she stopped and did a double take. “Do I know you?” She kept looking back at me—“you seem so weirdly familiar to me, where do I know you from??”

“Well, what’s your name?” I asked. It didn’t ring a bell. The woman she’d been speaking to leaned around her and said, “she’s a doctor in Oncology.”

Oncology… cancer. I don’t know anyone who works in veterinary cancer. The only time I might have seen this woman before would have been—

“Did you ever come here with rabbits?!” she suddenly demanded. Mystery solved, she was one of the doctors who had worked on Lahi’s case… three years ago.

We had a moment of “oh wow yeah—wasn’t he the one—do you remember how,—wasn’t that crazy?!”

Lahi underwent a successful surgery in 2018 to remove a malignant melanoma tumour on his ear only to, almost exactly a year later, develop an even more malignant tumour on his toe. Since the age of 7 Lahi had made it his life’s goal to stump the vets—nearly managed it at age 10 when all the molars on his lower left jaw melted out of his mouth. And just shy of age 13, in December 2019 Lahi went out in style when multiple tests and experts all agreed that what was on his toe was a hepatoid carcinoma—a cancer only ever recorded in DOGS.

His loss still hurts, but somehow I have spent the rest of the day smiling fondly at the thought that Lahi made such an impression on the literal experts of veterinary cancer that they still think about him, three years later.

Big shoutout to Drs Julianne McCready, Omar Zaheer, Trinity Barboza, Gabrielle Allegrini, and all the other amazing vets and techs in the OVC Av/Ex and Oncology departments who took such amazing care of Lahi and Delilah as the two of them worked hard to develop every bizarre rabbit health problem known (and unknown!) to veterinary science. I still have the condolence cards I was given after each of them passed, signed by all the people who cared for them in my stead, and knew and loved them for the quirky and special creatures they were.

It’s been three years and I still think about how lucky I was to be able to have my rabbits treated by the best of the best.

[lahi-n-delilah]

From 6 years ago:

“Lahi got the cuddle of his life today. My sister was nice enough to look after the buns upstairs while I vacuumed their enclosure, and when I came back Delilah was busy trying to melt all over Lahi, and Lahi was in cuddle heaven.”

Basically she was petting both of them and Delilah was so into the pets that she ended up climbing on top of Lahi to get into prime petting position!

Lahi probably preferred that anyway, since he didn’t usually like to be touched.

[lahi-n-delilah]

August 28, 2016. Rabbits pair-bond for life, and Lahi and Delilah were so in love ❤️ I hope soon I can help her find a new husbun to love.

[lahi-n-delilah]

Hello Tumblr. For some reason over the past week this blog has been getting 50-60 new followers a day, which has been... mind blowing? Also REALLY CONFUSING??

However you found yourself here, welcome to roughly 200+ new people. You’ve found yourself here at rather a depressing point—both Lahi and Delilah have now passed, as of this month.

I do plan to continue with this blog. I started it not just as a pet blog for Lahi and Delilah, but also as an educational blog about rabbits, hoping to help teach some things both from what I’ve learned and through stories of how I came to learn it.

So for some of you, here’s an important first lesson: (European) rabbits are intensely social animals. In the wild they will live in large groups of sometimes 100 individuals or more. In captivity, they form extremely codependent bonds, usually in pairs.

A rabbit in isolation is a rabbit that is suffering immensely. Don’t argue on this point. There are actual laws in many countries forbidding rabbits and other social animals being kept by themselves. It’s considered inhumane for social animals to be denied social stimulation.

Some rabbits can be kept very happily alone, bonded to their human—but they do need a bond.

And here’s something that I think anyone who has two bunnies needs to know: they can die of grief.

When Lahi’s sister Picca passed away, he became extremely depressed. Stopped playing, stopped eating, became very listless and lethargic. I have no doubt he would have quickly followed his sister, except by serendipity I had acquired Delilah by that point and she was essentially throwing herself at poor Lahi. Her sheer determination to shower him with love gave him the strength to pull out of his grief and keep living. In the end, he lived almost double the lifespan of his sister before cancer took him last December.

When that happened, I was older and wiser—I took his body home, and allowed Delilah time to sit with him and come to terms with what had happened. This is something that is important to all animals that lose a close family member, because we can’t tell them what happened. They need time with the body to process it and help them grieve. From Lahi’s point of view, one day his sister was there, and the next she wasn’t, and he would never know why. That likely contributed a great deal to his immense grief.

When Lahi passed, Delilah was there with him, to comfort him and help him go peacefully. That was for his sake. For her sake, I brought him home. I laid him down, and in the quiet and safety of their home, gave her time with him. At first Delilah was very distressed, digging and nipping at his body. This only lasted a short while, before she began grooming him, and then lay down next to him and stayed there for several hours. This is typical behaviour many people have described in their own rabbits.

After a couple of hours, she got up, left his body, and thereafter completely ignored it. She had accepted that he was gone, that his body was empty. I knew then it was okay to take him back to the clinic for aftercare arrangements.

I didn’t go out and find Delilah a new partner, and I’ll forever regret that. I was out of work, paying vet bills for both Delilah’s ear abscesses and Lahi’s cancer had been crippling, and I didn’t think it was responsible to get another rabbit until I had better income to support medical costs. Then the pandemic hit, and by that point she had started bonding more strongly to me, hopping into my lap for hour long cuddles. I hoped she would be okay until I could financially support a second rabbit.

I was wrong.

Her abscesses got worse. The bacteria was becoming more resistant to different types of antibiotics, and was eventually diagnosed as full-on MRSA. She developed facial paralysis and permanent nerve damage, and went on more and more meds.

End of March/early April she suddenly dropped half her weight and had to be hospitalized for 5 days for extreme muscle wasting and emaciation. Every diagnostic test we could throw at her found nothing that could have caused this. That was probably the beginning of the end, and I think I knew it even then. I began reaching out to local rescues asking about fostering, but was stumped by misunderstandings around the protocols of fostering vs adopting, and let the communication drop. Delilah’s vet bills started mounting again.

We fought long and hard but when she started crashing at the beginning of this month, the list of things wrong with her wasn’t fitting on one page anymore—and the cause of a lot of it was still unknown. She lasted almost a year without her husbun, but I think that in the end... she just gave up. Delilah couldn’t continue on without Lahi.

Losing Lahi hurt like losing a child. I had him nearly all 13 years of his life. He was my little boy. It was agony.

Losing Delilah too is breaking me.

Don’t let anyone say that losing a pet isn’t equivalent to losing a family member. Your fur child is an integral part of your everyday life. Every single day I find myself attributing odd noises to bunny mischief, only to have to push back a fresh wave of grief as I remember. In quiet moments I find myself listening for the sounds of bunny feet that will never come. The holes in my life are gaping and raw and ripping me apart

I know one day it will get better. One day I will be in a better place, and open my heart and my home to new rabbits. But for now... my empty arms ache, and I grieve

[lahi-n-delilah]

Memories from five years ago today: July 22, 2015

Lahi and Delilah love adventures ❤ They are just too cute I cannot handle this nonsense.

Under the slide is an exciting place to dig!

I swear to you, Delilah poses. She spotted me with the camera, hopped over, and sat there turning her head slightly or shifting her legs for several minutes. Because she's a diva. Look at that cute bunny nose!

[lahi-n-delilah]

On this day, 1 year ago:

“Food, mummy.”

“But Lahi you get food in the morning, not at—“

“FOOD, MUMMY!”

Their faces don’t move much but they still manage to be very expressive. Sitting in my chair reading a good story and I can just FEEL him staring me down. I’m going to cave eventually and he knows it. He’s a patient bunny. He can wait.

[lahi-n-delilah]

Did Lahi pass away? :(

Yes, in December 😢 he made it his lifelong goal to stump the vet, and so of course he went out in style by developing a malignant cancer that has only ever been seen in dogs. Once the oncology specialists finish arguing about whether or not every single test and expert is actually returning the correct results, Lahi’s case will be published in veterinary science journals as the first ever case of hepatoid carcinoma in rabbits!

Delilah and I both miss him dearly. This is a picture from the final vet appointment—we fought that cancer as hard as we could, but it spread incredibly fast and soon there was a tumour in his mouth interfering with eating. He was happily accepting a liquid diet of Critical Care, but once he started limping and couldn’t run and play anymore I knew it was time to say goodbye. His final moments were spent happily on a fluffy fleece provided by the vet, surrounded by family, with Delilah by his side.

[lahi-n-delilah]

Lil ol‘ man in his new owl cave. Lahi has been displaying behavior that’s indicating he’s likely feeling insecure and unsafe in the condo, since I keep bothering him with meds and Critical Care. He hears me coming and leaves the condo and hides behind my chair where it’s hard to reach him, or under a basket where it’s hard to see him. So I got Lahi this pure wool owl cave and demonstrated to him that while he’s in the owl, he is totally and 100% safe and untouchable. Nobody will bother him while he’s in his owl. ⁣

(Low-key feeling pretty guilty about how fast he figured it out and now is spending so much time in the cave.)⁣

Lahi is still eating and pooping but he’s getting ever more sensitive about his mouth, and he’s moving very stiffly which makes me think there must be some developing tumors interfering with his joints, especially his hind right. It seems like a new tumour pops up every day, and that’s only external—I’m sure there’s internal ones that are much more problematic. I got some nice pictures of him on Monday, ordered a paw print pad online which arrived last night, and my family came to visit today and they all made sure to say goodbye. As he prefers, none of them touched him but they all told him what a good boy he is and fed him lots of treats. My sister took home in a tiny jar some of the loose fur I saved from shedding seasons as a keepsake. ⁣

While I call Lahi’s birthday Jan 6, that was actually when I adopted him, and he was probably a couple months old at that point. So Lahi is 13 years old now. He’s had the best life I could give him. We’ve overcome so much, but it’s finally time to say goodbye. I’m so grateful we’ve had this one last week with him, and that he has been able to be with Delilah as she recovers from her ear surgery. ⁣

The recheck appointment is at 10am tomorrow and I will be asking the vet about scheduling Lahi’s euthanasia. I love my little boy too much to let him suffer through the inevitable painful progression of this cancer. ⁣

[lahi-n-delilah]

January 24, 2019. A year ago today, Lahi was recovering wonderfully from surgery to remove the malignant tumour at the base of his ear. Results had come back with clean margins and I was finally letting myself hope that the nightmare was over, and he would be okay. I could never have imagined that he would only get one more year. I miss him so much.

“Lahi’s bald ear is slowly getting fur back. My handsome little man! Franken-bun is no more.

This is the second logic toy I’ve given the two munchkins and while Delilah is still angrily banging this one around, demanding it produce food, Lahi had it figured out in under two minutes. Figuring out that he didn’t have to get all the food from the same door took a little longer, but not by much!”⁣

[lahi-n-delilah]

Yesterday I received very bad news. The mass in Lahi’s mouth has gotten significantly worse in the past 20 days since it was discovered. His appetite has dropped and it seems to be hurting him quite a bit. The vet estimates that his quality of life will be dropping significantly and he will reach endpoint within two to three weeks. I dropped him off at the OVC today for his first radiation treatment, but oncology estimates that in the unlikely event that radiation even does anything, it would buy him a couple months, 6 months if he’s very lucky.

He’s had a very long and happy life and has beaten the odds many times. We bought him an extra year after removing the tumour on his ear last December, and he’s had a really good year. But it seems his ridiculous luck had finally run out. It is unlikely he’ll make it to his 13th birthday in January. Even Christmas will be a stretch. ⁣

The malignant cancer has spread through his body but ultimately the limit on his life is when the mass in his mouth becomes so big that he can’t eat anymore. Once he stops eating, that’s it. ⁣

I’m pursuing radiation to at least see if we can halt the growth of the mass—I will happily feed him a liquid diet of critical care if that’s what he needs. Right now he is still happy and active and so I can’t give up on him just yet. Radiation will be stupidly expensive but if he gets another couple months of love and joy, isn’t that worth it? Can you put a price on happiness?⁣

Also; veterinary cancer treatment is not like human cancer treatment. Humans will undergo extreme suffering for the sake of a chance to be cancer-free, and it doesn’t always work. It’s not ethical to put an animal through that kind of suffering it won’t understand, and the success rates would be even lower. Veterinary cancer treatment is about slowing down cancer progression and maximizing quality of life. There’s always a risk of complications like radiation burns, but ultimately the radiation will not cause Lahi distress the way a human cancer patient would be experiencing distress.

[lahi-n-delilah]

Mmmmmm, Critical Care. Yummy. ⁣

This is a lot more watery than the package recommends (it says 1 part powder to 2 parts water) but I find it needs a lot more water before it will go nicely into a syringe. And there’s nothing wrong with getting more water into them!⁣

Pro tip: the oral syringes used for most medications have nozzles that are too small and get all clogged up with the larger bits in Critical Care, and are honestly the worst to deal with. Ask your vet for a catheter syringe, it’s much larger both in the volume it can hold and in the size of the nozzle!

Luckily Lahi is a very good boy and doesn’t need a syringe to take his Critical Care unless he’s in GI stasis and refusing his food. Which he’s not, this is because the mass on his cheek has him less interested in things that require chewing. Really, even without the cancer he was going this way anyway, since he’s missing all the molars on his lower left jaw (they MELTED out of his mouth, because this rabbit insists on the most bizarre health problems possible) and his upper left jaw was probably going to start losing teeth soon too.⁣

Honestly I reccomend everyone go to their vet and get a bag of Oxbow Critical Care to have on hand in case of any emergency. They’ve got a minty original flavour and a banana & apple flavour. Delilah won’t touch the banana flavour without extreme duress (I had a plate out last night and watched her continuously go over, try it, grimace, run away, go over, try it, grimace, run away...) but as you can see, Lahi loves it. I have a bag of each flavour and I just keep them in the freezer. ⁣

[lahi-n-delilah]

Lahi and Delilah are both looking pretty bleary after having each gone through anesthesia. Lahi had his first radiation treatment on Thursday and as promised it doesn’t seem to have affected him much, and once he shook off his grogginess he’s been back to eating, pooping, and making mischief. Fingers crossed the tumour isn’t feeling so unaffected. ⁣

Delilah only came home from her PECA-BO on Wednesday so really shouldn’t be back together with Lahi again so soon—if he licks her incision, it could become infected. But with Lahi now having extremely limited time, I can’t help but think I should be maximizing their cuddle time so they can be together while they still can. ⁣

For the most part it doesn’t seem to be a concern, since the incision is tucked underneath her ear. It’s not as neat and pretty as the incision on her other ear was, but it’s smaller. I’m gambling cuddles against infection and she’s on 3 different types of antibiotics right now, so 🤷‍♀️⁣

Unfortunately, the smacking mouth behaviour that had me bringing Lahi in to be checked in the first place is a lot more frequent. Sometimes he’ll start making empty chewing motions and then suddenly some very loud clicks will happen. I have no idea what’s happening and can only dread it means nothing good. But he’s still voluntarily approaching the food bowl to eat... I’m just continuing to tell myself that as long as he’s eating, he can’t be in too much pain.

[lahi-n-delilah]

This box is a favourite of both bunnies, and of any human who watches them squeeze into it! Rabbits are capable of fitting through nearly any hole larger than their skull, and the rest of their skeleton seems to be able to melt at will. Thus, chunky ball of floof Delilah can and does regularly boggle everyone’s minds by squeezing into the box.

Sometimes while Lahi’s already in it, as was the case here! His black fur remains the bane of my camera in dim light, so I pointed out a few parts of him you can see in the one picture, to help you see him. He’s mirroring Delilah, essentially, with his paw up against her nose. Delilah is of the opinion that cuddles are performed with your WHOLE BODY!! What’s this ‘personal space’ you speak of? She’s certainly never heard of it.

I get the boxes from Subway; it holds the bags of syrup that supplies the pop machine, and when the bag runs out they throw away the bag and box and open a new bag and box. They don’t mind me asking for a few, and the boxes are incredibly sturdy and last a very long time.

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See more about little old man Lahi!

See more about pudgy princess Delilah!

Learn about Lahi and Delilah's story!

Read about other great rabbit toys!

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Questions, comments, suggestions, or generalized squee'ing? Rabbits love attention!

[laholatva]

Since Reverse-Bunnysuit is all the rage right now, I’m gonna go one step further!

Link to better resolution: https://www.deviantart.com/lahis/art/Reverse-Reverse-Bunny-835059737

[laholatva]

And a proper Reverse Bunny Suit too.