It has been 3 months since my sweet boy Wesley passed over to the rainbow bridge. As much as I like to think that I have come to a place of acceptance and peace, I still cry about it sometimes and find myself looking at pictures of him, randomly thinking of him and feeling pain and a strong want for answers I will never get. I miss him so much and I just keep wondering what killed him, what took him so suddenly. I don’t even know exactly what happened, was it a stroke, a seizure? I’ve asked my two vets, at home in Texas and here at school and both assured me that if it was something that took him that quickly, it was likely something that could not have been detected, possibly not treatable and there was nothing I could have done. They couldn’t quite give me a reason or tell me what might’ve happened, a best guess was a blood clot which caused paralysis and seizure..All I know was he was happy in my arms one moment, and gone not even 20 minutes later.
I keep considering his health- he was only six years old..and just a year ago he was a happy chunky bun. The vets said he needed to lose a little weight and I had been spoiling him too much. He had molar spurs but they were filed down on a regular basis.
In his last months he got so skinny. the vet had told me that she too was concerned with his weight, and it could be an internal parasite but they would never truly know without running tests for which they did not have resources…something strange as well was that the shaven areas on his ears during his molar surgery took almost 5 months to grow back in..
But as skinny and bony as he was, he was so happy and normal, binkying about, following my EVERYWHERE (up and down the stairs, in the kitchen, into the bathroom), and snuggling with me at every moment just as he always had. He was a trouble maker, always finding ways to get into cereal or fruit trays in the kitchen.. if you were eating chips near him he would try to snatch one, he even once took a sip of my almond milk before I shoo’d him away.
The only time I feared for his health was when he had a massive bout of diarhhea one early morning. I had fed him and nursed him back to a normal eating drinking pooing cycle..
It was after that and I began to seriously see his weight loss that I began researching ways to help him gain weight. He never liked eating hay, no matter what amount or variety I bought. He enjoyed his timothy pellets..
I had read several sources on rolled oats helping a rabbit to get fiber and gain a bit of weight, so I began semi-regularly mixing in some oats with his pellets and veggies which he seemed to enjoy.
Its just the more that I think about it and read different things, the more I think I hurt him in some way. Did the oats hurt him, did he come in contact with something in my garden that was poisonous and slowly killed him on the inside? He did not show a single sign of illness other than a low weight. He had so much energy and love.. so why was he taken so suddenly? Was it some disease that showed no symptoms that he had for a long time without my knowledge? Did I feed him something that slowly caused him to be sick? When I fostered a bunny, they would get in fights to the point where I had to separate them. At one point Wesley had a big open wound on his bottom that bled.. I put antiseptics for days until it seemed to heal back to normal.. I even wonder about that wound! I keep finding millions of reasons why it could’ve been my fault somehow but I won’t ever know.
I did all my research and did my very best to give him the greatest care and NO ONE loved him more than I.. I talked about him and loved him as if he truly was my baby, my best friend more than any human. I just hurt and it pains me to know that I will never have the answers to any of these questions. I hurt for his baby sister, where as she and I have grown closer than ever, I know that I am no match for the bond she had with him and it pains me to think of her being lonely.
I can only hope that someday I will truly be at peace with everything and know that my boy will come hopping back into my arms on some future day when I arrive in Heaven with him.