A Bunny Tale Part Two

Last year, Henry became part of our family. I wrote about him in my first article titled A Bunny Tale. Since then, we have come to know that God really has a wonderful sense of humor and that this poor bunny has more in common with our youngest son, his owner. Only God could orchestrate something so perfect.

Henry ended up recovering from his surgery with a few weeks of antibiotic injections and a lot of tender loving care. We thought life would be normal once again. I was thinking that, perhaps, his post-surgery infection may have been just some odd coincidence. No, with God, there are not coincidences. This bunny seems to be taking on the properties of his owner, somehow. Joseph has a special bond with Henry because of everything that has transpired. About a month after Henry had fully recovered from his surgery, he developed conjunctivitis in his right eye. Since bunnies can have problems with pink eye, we really thought nothing of it.

Several weeks went by and Henry developed these small red lesions on the inside of his ears. I assumed that they were just scratches from when he was grooming himself. A few of them had a hard time healing, so I used a bit of betadine on them. I even put alcohol on one of them when it started festering. They healed. Henry began sneezing a little bit, but again, we just thought nothing of it. The sniffing became worse and he started having trouble breathing while he ate. I kept a close eye on him and at this same time he developed another lesion in his ear that would not heal! It kept bleeding and became larger and larger. The redness around the sore began spreading to the edges of his ear. It was a weekend, so I watched him closely as I thought to myself, "I think this bunny is developing cellulitis just like Sean and Joseph!" I couldn't believe it. By Monday morning when I called the vet, his ear was slightly swollen and almost completely red.

I brought poor Henry to the vet yet again. He does not seem to mind too much. The vet looked at his ear, looked in his mouth and looked in his twitching little nose. I explained how he had had a few lesions in the past that I took care of and went on to tell her that I thought he had scratched himself. She seemed to think that these lesions were not from his scratching himself and felt that it was unusual to have these repeat lesions in his ears. She checked Henry for ringworm and that was negative. She determined that he had two bacterial infections. Snuffles, which is a bacterial upper respiratory infection in rabbits and he had cellulitis on his ear. We left with two antibiotics and probiotics.

When Joseph heard that his bunny had Snuffles and cellulitis, he said, "WOW! My bunny really is just like me! I get cellulitis and he gets cellulitis. I have sinus problems and so does he!" At this point, I would not be surprised if the vet told me that Henry had Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, too!