We will miss you, Lulu..

I have been putting this off for the past 2 weeks hoping by the time I'd have write this it will be a happy news, but, alas!

Let me start at the beginning..

As you know, our bunnies, Marbles and Lulu do not get along. At all. On a couple of occasions, Marbles chased Lulu around the house and once managed to corner her and was pounding on her until she ran off. The second time this happened, they were both outside the house and hubz interfered and rescued Lulu from Marbles' snarls! I was a bit worried that Lulu might have gotten hurt but hubz checked her for bite marks or bleeding but there were none, so we left it at that.

Two weeks later we noticed she was getting less and less active and was slowing down on her food. We also noticed her left eye was swollen, so we took her to the vet. The vet turned her upside down, pushed her head up and asked us, "Did you notice this?" pointing at a patch of raw skin with puss oozing out of it when he pressed. Imagine our horror??! We obviously didn't. Hubz who grooms her so often has missed it because underneath her chin is not an area he brushes, and bunnies don't usually allow you to touch their face that way.

Apparently there were two nasty bites on her face, one on her neck underneath her chin and another at the side of her face, which has become septic. The one on her neck has become worst causing the hair to fall off as the puss built up underneath her skin. The vet said he'd need to surgically remove the affected skin & tissue and explained we'd have to dilligently clean her wound morning and night if we want to keep her. He also explained in length the limited medications and antibiotic available to treat bunnies, making us realise, how fragile these little creatures really are. (Which also explains why they breed as they do, doesn't it?) He gave us antibiotic to be administered daily and asked us to clean her twice a day with salt water.

I must say that hubz was the one who really took care of her, waking up so early in the morning to clean her before we go to work and cleaning her once more the moment he gets home.

Here's Lulu, healing nicely..

Last Saturday we took her to the vet again to get more antibiotics and get them to clean her wound. We came out of there beaming as the vet said she seem to be holding well, her raw skin does not look so raw anymore, her appetite is insatiable, she eats so much daily! Just like any 6 mth old bunny would, I guess. The vet said since she's a fighter, we should do all we could to help her. We were delighted.

By Monday evening however, we noticed she has not eaten much, so we took her to the vet again to get her cleaned, and this time the vet noticed one of her forelegs was red, apparently septasimia. Yesterday I got home early to take her to the vet again to get them to clean her up and I noticed both her legs were covered in red spots. The vet said to me, "You should just let her go". She has not been eating since Monday and although her neck is getting better the septasimia seems to be spreading. I called hubz asking him to call the vet to make a decision. I can't bring myself to tell the vet to put her to, you know.

So, today is the day Lulu is going.

I do not want to go to the vet to face this, at the same time, I can't let hubz go through this on his own. Me knees go weak when I think about it. But I guess, it's better for her than to continue to suffer.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all

From Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam:27, 1850

Goodbye Lulu.

Introducing Lulu .. and hansaplast

Everyone, meet Lulu, the latest addition to our family. We got her to replace Pepsi who went missing. Lulu is an Angora mix bunny, around 4 months old and very playful. Her favourite thing to do is to slide across the floor from one end to another. She also is a picky eater, as she will pick out only certain type of grains from her bowl and leave the rest scattered! Clever, huh?

You should see her manoeuvres whenever she bumps into Marbles! She's quite afraid of him as he pounced on her with a snarl the first time they met. Since then Lulu's been carefully avoiding Marbles when she's out playing.

Lulu runs real fast as compared to Marbles who waddles along slowly like a pregnant lady. Nia likes the fun of chasing after Lulu; Lulu likes to come close to Nia, sniff at her before running along, somhow Nia finds this fascinating.

So last night was one of those typical nights when hubz will bring Lulu in while he cleans out the enclosure and replace their food & water. I have asked him to hold on to Lulu so Nia can pat her (as you can see from the pix above). Nia has a tendency to touch their faces (both of Marbles and Lulu), which I get totally freaked out about, as they usually start whenever she does that!

Last night, the moment hubz let Lulu go, Nia turned around and tried to pat her on the face and put out her hand to Lulu's mouth! Then, she got up suddenly, hugged her daddy and wailed! I knew immediately, without even looking, that she's got bitten! I checked her left hand (which she has put out to Lulu less than a minute earlier) there was a half circle bite mark on her thumb and it was just beginning to bleed. I hauled her up to the sink and let the blood run under running water, all the while trying to soothe her crying. Then carried her into our bedroom, plonked her on the bed, took out a little first aid box I've got readied a few months ago in anticipation of cuts & scratches she'd be experiencing the moment she starts walking, (never imagined bunny bites, to be honest!) wiped her little thumb with antiseptic wipes and put on a little hansaplast on the wound.

Another milestone in our lives! Nia's first wound, first hansaplast!

She stopped crying after the hansaplast went on and only then I began to panic a little. What if bunny bites are poisonous? Perhaps not as bad as dog's but don't people usually get tetanus shot if they are bitten? Even by another human? Shall we take her to the doctor's? What if she gets sick? To make me feel better, hubz suggested I call Damansara Specialist while he tries the local paed in our area. It was just past nine, obviously the paed's closed, while I got through to the paediatric ward in DSH. I introduced myself as the mother of DSH Paed, Dr. Soh's patient and described the incident. The nice nurse said I seem to have done whatever necessary and asked that I monitor her temperature for the next half hour or so, if there's a sudden spike in her temperature, I should bring her to see a doctor!

So, there I sat next to my sleeping baby, with a book in my hand and the thermometer next to her, every few minutes feeling her forehead for temperature, while in my heart I kept praying that she wouldn't have any temperature, that she'll be just alright. I cannot go through another round in the hospital, I don't want to. I hate being in the hospital, it always gives me a feeling of vulnerability which I dislike the most, and of course, the smell of antiseptic and sterile equipments! I tend to imagine the worst things when I'm confined to a hospital bed, when my baby's confined to a hospital bed, so I will do anything to not get there in the first place!

She will be alright, there won't be any fever, we won't need to get anywhere near the hospital.

Woke up this morning and took her temperature, it was normal. What a relief! Either way, I told my aunt to monitor her nevertheless, just in case.

Oh, btw, here's her first band-aided thumbawww... so kesian, kan?

The end too soon

Marbles on the left and Pepsi on the right

Nia playing with Marbles who is always in the house

*Sigh* I don't even know how to start putting my thoughts on this into words, so I'm gonna keep this short. Remember the bunnies we've just adopted, Pepsi & Marbles? Pepsi is a 3 year old rescued black Anggora while Marbles is a 4 year old male colour rabbit. Well, yesterday, we found Pepsi missing. It's highly unlikely that she might have ventured out on her own because all these while the two of them were with us, the only one who runs out all the time is Marbles.

Whomever it is who took our Pepsi, we just hope they will look after her. She is feisty but good-tempered, minds her own business and likes to hang out near trees or bushy plants.

I felt a pang in my guts when I saw hubz stood staring at Pepsi's favourite spot behind the pillar, next to flowering grass plant, looking at the marks she's left there, as she used to sit there for hours if it doesn't rain. When it rains her favourite spot is in the corner of the outside wall, at the edge of the grille, where she will be joined by Marbles for warmth.

We miss her.

An eventful weekend

Last weekend must've been THE most eventful weekend ever, I must say! Saturday morning we went to Paya Jaras which is way after Sungai Buloh to buy some flowering plants from this place called Yew Garden. We bought several pots of the normal Jasmine, one really funky Jasmine species that had very big flowers almost the size of frangipani, another plant with tiny white flowers which also smell like Jasmine, white bougainvillaes and few other plants. These were add ons to our trip to another nursery the weekend before last, in Sungai Buloh. No wonder everyone goes to Sungai Buloh to look for plants, you would not believe how cheap they are! It's laughable!

Anyways, some of the pix of the flowering plants we bought (pix off their website):

normal jasmine

white bougainvillaesanother type of jasmine that we wanted which was out of stock

this one is called heliconia lady diana also out of stock

I guess I should take photos of the other plants that we bought but on their website and put it up here later. Anyways, our so-called garden ain't that big nor pretty, the only reason why hubz suddenly got into a plant buying spree is because we were getting new family members joining us that weekend. But before that...

Saturday we made two trips to that part of town. Mum called when we were on the way back from Paya Jaras saying there's a "kenduri arwah" (prayers) for my aunt who passed away recently at one of my uncle's place in Bukit Rahman Putra in Sungai Buloh. So we got home, spent a couple of hours, digging and planting everything that we bought earlier and went to my uncle's place. While having dinner, hubz pointed out a stray doggie just outside the house. So we quickly ate and went out looking for it. It was a cute little doggy, so awfully scrawny & dirty and looks like it was probably has not had proper food for a week or so. It has the face of terrier but somehow looked like shih tzu as well, so we assume it's probably a mix between these two breed.

Hubz, the animal lover that he is, got so worked up looking at the poor doggie's condition. I went into my uncle's house, got some chicken bones and a bit of rice in a styrofoam food container and brought it out for the doggie, she ate hungrily, choking a couple of times in her hurry to finish up the food and after that started to tail me around. Oh gosh! What are we gonna do?!

Hubz looked up at me while patting the doggie, with a doggie face, and I immediately said, "You can bring it back tonight but we must send it to SPCA first thing tomorrow morning. The rabbits are arriving tomorrow, we can't have all three of them adjusting to a new environment at the same time!" He was happy enough for the time being and obliged. So we went looking for a big box to put her in and went home. Hubz bathed her, removed some ticks from her ears, (thank God there were only few ticks, they really freak me out) and boiled some chicken with rice and garlic for her. She had some red spot on her body caused by some infection of sort, according to hubs garlic supposed to be antiseptic and has fed it to his previous dogs to treat infection. How cool right, I didn't know that!

Some pix:

bathing session

hubz trimming her clumped hair

nia playing with freshly cleaned happy little doggie

We named her Emma, short for "emaciated". I know, not very nice, but at least Emma sounds better than Kurus! Hahahaha. We put her out at the porch overnight, she was such a good little doggie, did not bark at all from the time we brought her back right up to our bedtime that I actually asked hubz if she could be mute?! I'm not being silly, I have heard about some strange people who get their dog's voice box removed so that they won't make noise! But then finally she barked when my sis came by quite late that night and again a couple more times in the middle of the night, probably because she saw cats. Phew. She's fine, she has her voice box in tact :oP

By the time morning came, hubz was a bit sullen, I know he did not want to send her to SPCA but we've committed to adopting two rabbits already, so there's no way we can have a dog and bunnies too, at least not all of them at the same time. Although I felt for hubz, Emma came at the wrong time, it was just a No-go for the time being. So reluctantly we drove to SPCA and dropped Emma off.

Funny thing is, the lady at the shelter who was manning the office on that Sunday morning had this look on her face that told us what she was thinking - that she did not believe Emma was a rescued stray. Well, if it was upto hubz, we won't even be at SPCA in the first place! Why would we lie about giving up a doggie? Poor poor hubz.. tak ada rezeki sayang, maybe next time.

From SPCA we made a quick stop at Ampang Puteri to see my gf's baby Syasya, sat down and chat with her for a bit and dashed home to pick up our new addition to the family two bunnies named Marbles & Pepsi.

We adopted them from a couple of really lovely people, Aunty Kamala and her hubz, Dr. Mohan. They've been having bunnies around since forever but had to give away a couple of them as they do not get along with their other rabbit, Kutti. We met up with them once to check the bunnies out, then they came by our place to check our small little garden out and agreed to let us have them as pre-birthday pressie for Nia.

We collected pepsi, a a feisty female, that they have recently rescued, while they drove Marbles, a neutered male, to our place. We got home, settled them in while it was pouring outside. They came ready with food & water bowls, some towels that the bunnies have lied in ( to have the familiar smell around until they get used to the new environment) and some food and hay. What a wonderful pair of people! Soon as the bunnies old 'parents' left, we went off to get some bunny stuff. We got back with a dry bunny bath which hubz used to clean them up, brush their hair, set up the enclosure, ready their food & water and let them roam about the house.

While hubz was engrossed with the bunnies, I decide to de-clutter our bedroom by moving Nia's stuff out to her own room (which isn't ready yet, by the way) just to have a bit more space in our room! At the end of it all I was completely drained and my arms were numb (from carrying Nia around not from the de-cluttering).

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend! The bunnies are getting used to us, Nia's in awe of them, I'm also trying to get used to them bunnies while hubz is doing most of the bunny chores.. hehe.. Oh, some pix of the bunnies from last night:

Pepsi, sitting pretty next to the coconut tree

Marbles, looking gallant ..

I never knew how it feels like to have pets.. it's truly a wonderful feeling! All this thanks to Aunty Kamala and Dr. Mohan for their kindness..