Squirrel Thoughts

Our sweet little bunnykins has an owie in her eye. 😦

We found out this week that our poor, sweet bunny has glaucoma in one of her eyes.

After we noticed her left eye was looking pink and a little swollen on Saturday night, Zach took her into an emergency clinic on Sunday while I was at work. The vet tech there charged us $95 for being basically useless, but she gave us some ointment and made an appointment for Pancake to see a small animal vet on Wednesday.

When it was noticeably worse and looked like it was protruding on Monday, Zach drove her down to Helena to a vet who would look at her there on the holiday. (Sidenote: Zach wins the Bunny Dad of the Year Award, and my mom and dad win Bunny Grandparents of the Year for picking her and her medicine up and meeting Zach halfway!)

This vet actually performed an exam, and decided, kind of on a last-minute whim, to test her for glaucoma. She discovered that the pressure in Pancake’s left eye is slightly elevated, but she wouldn’t be able to run tests to determine why until the next morning.

Pancake was a very brave bunny and stayed all night at the vet’s office and held very still while the doctors put glaucoma drops in her eye. And she even got a strawberry!

The next day, the vets ran all sorts of tests on her, ruling out some scary possibilities but not all of them. The vet narrowed it down to two probable causes: It could be primary glaucoma, meaning it has no underlying cause, which is treatable, though she would probably have to have her eye removed at some point. The other possibility the vet suspects is called a retrobulbar abscess, which could be what’s causing bunny’s eye to protrude. The prognosis for that is much more grim.

The vet gave us some glaucoma drops to help alleviate the pressure and some pain-relieving drops. These, along with the original ointment, have to be administered three times a day at varying intervals, so we’ve had to wrap Pancake up in a “bunny burrito,” hold her eye open and drop them in. She’s not a fan of this, but hopefully it’s making her feel better the rest of the time.

Fortunately, Pancake’s behavior has remained pretty normal throughout all this, which is a good sign and hopefully means she’s not in a lot of pain. (Though bunnies, evolutionarily speaking,  are infamously good at hiding signs of sickness.)

So, we are going to give her the drops over the next week, and if it improves, it’s probably primary glaucoma. If it doesn’t improve, it could be the abscess, and we might have to make some tough decisions.

We’re trying to stay positive and hope for the best, because we love our fwuffy wuffy bunnykins so much and want her to live a long, happy life filled with hay and bananas and binkies and hopping and chewing on stuffs. If you have any positive vibes to spare, please send them Pancake’s way!