Well, what a couple of weeks Ralph and I have had...!

I haven’t written about it before because I wanted him to be all better first, but nearly three weeks ago, Ralph had emergency surgery to remove a stone from his bladder. It was major surgery for such a senior bunny and a very scary time, but my vet Elliot and his team at Vets for Pets Hereford were absolutely amazing so I wanted to write a post to thank them for their wonderful work.

It all started on a Saturday with Ralph not eating breakfast with his usual gusto, and showing some intermittent signs of discomfort through the day. I booked him in for an appointment that afternoon (so firstly a HUGE thank you to the practice for being open on a Saturday) and at that point we all thought it was just a digestive issue - not so uncommon with bunnies - so Ralph had some pain relief and something to support digestion and home we came.

But within a few hours he had deteriorated and I ended up calling the emergency number at about 8pm that night. (A heartfelt thank you to the practice for offering their own out of hours emergency service - not so many do these days and I am so, so grateful for this. It would have been just horrible to have to drive Ralph to an unknown surgery and a vet I didn't know.) Elliot met us at the surgery within the hour and this time immediately identified that Ralph's bladder was very full and painful… an X-ray later and a suspected bladder stone was spotted. Becky D, the on-call nurse, was called in, and after a discussion about treatment options and signing of consent forms, it was time for me to leave Ralph in their care...

Over the next few hours he was sedated, x-rayed again, scanned, catheterised, given strong opioid pain relief and ultimately had surgery at about midnight. It was the longest night ever (quite literally as the clocks went back!) but Elliot called me in the small hours to say Ralph was coming round and things had gone well. As soon as he was recovering and stable he went home with Elliot for care and meds through the night - and at about 6am I had a message to say he was doing well, and a little video of Elliot’s young son Iolo stroking Ralph. It meant the absolute world...

I couldn't really relax at this point because very sadly I lost my last rabbit, Rudolph, the day following surgery, so I am only too aware of how fragile they can be afterwards. Plus on the couple of occasions Ralph has had anaesthetic before (for dental work) it has taken him a long while to recover.

Anyway, thankfully he continued to rally and by the next morning was eating and weeing and grooming himself. Ralph came home later that day, and ever since has been gradually and steadily recovering… lots of meds, sleep, warmth and hand feeding for Ralph, lots of napping on the floor and neglecting Cottontails for me. As you would expect from Ralph, he has been the model patient and even tolerated the little body suit he had to wear after he started fussing with his stitches. Nearly three weeks on and he has been signed off and is 90% back to his happy relaxed self - including binkies in the morning and flops in the evening. And I am just about recovering myself.

So…. An ENORMOUS thank you to Elliot for establishing such a wonderful practice, and for taking such great care of Ralph, and a huge thank you to the rest of the team; to Becky D for coming in during the middle of a Saturday night, to Becky B for handing Ralph back to me to the following day, to Leigh for two stress-free check-ups and for dressing Ralph in his suit for the first time, and to all the other many support staff for their kindness, care and lovely words about Ralph.

Finally I want to mention the new podcast that Elliot and Becky have just started, The Vet with Pets. The second episode was recorded the morning after Ralph’s surgery so he gets a few mentions which was super-interesting for me, but that aside it’s a really lovely listen -  The Vet with Pets Podcast, episode 2  (Ralph's story features at about seven minutes in).

The podcast gives a flavour of how caring and positive Elliot, Becky and the team are and offers a behind the scenes look into the practice and some of their patients. It is just really nice to hear two people talking about doing something they love, and in an unexpected way it makes me want to work harder at Cottontails and get more engaged in rabbit welfare - to find more motivation in my own life.

On that note, I really do have to start pouring a bit more energy into Cottontails now - this is a critical time of year for a toy shop so I’m planning some long hours in the days ahead to catch up on the past couple of weeks and get things properly festive. So, expect lots more engagement on here in coming days - blog posts, Christmas Gift Guide, advent bunnies, festive fair details and much more….