A week ago (May 19), I noticed Poppy didn't finish her pellets that I left for her from the night before. She usually just gobbles them all up in a few minutes. Immediately I checked up on her and saw that she seemed very lethargic. So I've kept an eye on her for the whole morning and noticed she haven't touched any food or water since the previous day. I realize there's trouble and quickly called the clinic that I have prepared. Unfortunately, the vet that specialize in rabbits wasn't in that day. I called a couple other places and they all say the same. It just so happens that it is the day before a long weekend holiday, bad timing. As the day go on, Poppy seems to be more and more stressed. She's not moving much and is curling up. Something is definitely very bad. I practically called every clinics I could find in Toronto that I can reach by public transit. Nope, it just so happens that none are available. So I seeked for help from the people of Rabbit Rescue, where I adopted Poppy from. From doing some research of my own, I thought Poppy was having some gas problem. They suggested that I medicate her with Ovol, an over-the-counter gas reducing medicine. Since I've never syringe feed before, that took a few trials before I am certain Poppy took in a good amount. I kept trying every hour for the night hoping for her to improve. After sleeping for a few hours, Poppy still doesn't seem to be getting well by the morning, in fact, she got much worse. She didn't groom herself and her bum was getting dirty. She looks as though she's in real pain. I went to the only clinic that kindly accepted to squeeze me into their schedule for 11am that day, which is now Saturday (May 20) already. After an hour of diagnosis (the vet clearly isn't too used to treating a rabbit), an x-ray shows that Poppy had a hairball stuck in her belly. By now, there were some other clients lining up, so the vet had to run in and out from me to the other clients. After a long while, I finally left the clinic with a whole stash of drugs for Poppy, but balanced with a much lighter wallet. I never imagined it could be so expensive. Anyway, I took Poppy home and put her in the cage to rest a bit since she's been out all morning. I thought I might let her relax before force feeding her the medications. While I'm preparing the concoction for Poppy, she suddenly started to shake and scream very violently. She's clearly in a lot of pain. I caressed her to calm her down and once she's ready, I lifted her out for the medication. While I'm holding her for the medication, I could feel that she's getting weaker and weaker by the second. Then finally, she passed away in my arms around 2:45pm, May 20th, 2006.
Although it is very sad for this sweet rabbit to leave, her memory will live on with the thousands of viewers that are enjoying her videos which I've posted on
Google Video. There is a total of
10 videos of Poppy posted, a few I just added this week. Also, here's a tribute for her.
