by Nancy Laracy
“No no, sweetie,” said Julie softly as she shooed the kit out of the basket. “Not my magazines.”
I barely recognized the sweet tone. Julie had recently morphed into a tween—the difficult stage that prepares you for a worse stage that’s yet to come. Chris had taken Julie’s personality change in stride, unlike me, who took it personally.
In a nanosecond, the bunny regrouped and charged the basket, chewing the wicker with a frenetic pace. I swooped in and pried open her mouth to find that a small piece of wicker had already made it past her razor-sharp teeth. I was sure it would have made its way down her throat to cause a blockage in her intestines. It was our second near-miss. Bunnies have a one-way esophagus, and the unusual strength of their sphincter muscle prevents them from throwing up hairballs or dangerous items or substances. There would be no syrup of ipecac to help with these kinds of emergencies.
I began to fret as I looked around the room at the dozens of wires coming from the computer, the television, and the Nintendo 64. My eyes moved to the kids’ textbooks and a few stray sneakers. Chris must have read my mind.
“The bunny better not chew my Nintendo wires or my headphones,” he warned.
“We need to name the bunny,” I said suddenly. I had already anticipated that naming our kit would set into motion a major squabble between Julie and Chris and me, and secretly I hoped that their friends might come up with more innovative names to choose from. I reached into my pants pocket and took out a list of possible names I had carefully prepared while they were at school. In bright red letters, I’d written down half a dozen adjectives that I thought described her fur exquisitely: Caramel, Buttercup, Sandy, Creamsicle, Velvet, Ginger, and Satin. At the bottom, written in black letters, were the bunny-sounding names that I loathed: Snowball, Thumper, Fluffy, and Flopsy. Before I could suggest a single name, Julie and Chris blurted out, “We like Fluffett, Mom. We already decided on the bunny’s name.”
I stood for a moment, speechless, not sure what bothered me more: the name or my lack of input. Sadly, I looked at my list.
“Fluffett?” I asked, desperately trying to hide my disappointment but failing miserably. God, it’s so pedestrian, I thought. None of the other children offered a single name; they were strangely quiet. “What about Ginger, like in Ginger Rogers?” I asked in a pleading tone. “She was a famous movie star.”
“We never heard of her, Mom.”
Of course they hadn’t.
“And it has cache. Fluffett is so ordinary,” I pleaded. I wanted to say, “I hate Fluffett!”
“But we like Fluffett,” they said firmly.
I foolishly looked toward their friends for help, but the children were now all nodding their heads in agreement. “It’s the perfect bunny name, Mrs. Laracy,” one of them quipped.
“We voted on Fluffett during the bus ride home,” added Julie. “The name won hands down!”
I relaxed my authoritative stance and gave up the fight. I had learned to pick my battles. As if trying to soften the blow, Chris signaled for me to sit down and join their friends. For the next hour, Fluffett continued to entertain us to the point of ridiculousness. We Laracys had clearly been deprived of a furry pet for too long.
We were still in the throes of playtime when the doorbell rang. My mother and sister, Carol, had stopped by unannounced to meet our new pet. The house felt like New York City’s Grand Central Station with all its visitors. Chris gently picked up the bunny and ran to open the front door, with Julie and me on his trail. He raised the bunny up like an offertory chalice and exclaimed, “Look how cute she is!” That would quickly become Chris’s standard line when describing the bunny.
“She’s a dwarf. A red satin named Fluffett. She’ll only grow to weigh about two and a half pounds,” I rattled off, sounding like I was reading a science report.
My mother looked at me the way a mother does sometimes, as if she knew before I ever would how much this bunny would bring our family together. “You were always rebellious,” my mom said, glancing at the bunny. We both knew I had gotten my fire and spirit from her.
By the time darkness settled in, the neighborhood children had all gone home. Julie and Chris put Fluffett back in her cage, where she grazed on hay and let out all of her pent-up bodily waste. We tried to eat our dinner without being distracted. We would have to find a better location for her cage.
After finishing their dinner in record time, the children went to retrieve Fluffett, who darted toward the furthermost corner of her cage and ducked down for cover. But she had nowhere to hide.
“She might need a little more quiet time, kids,” said my mom. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
The poor kit would soon learn that there was no rest for the weary when it came to Chris. He reached into the cage from the top instead of the front latch, startling her. The bunny kicked litter up into the air and charged first to the right, then to the left, trying to dodge him.
“I can’t catch her, Jules!” he yelled. The tiny bunny hopped over her bowl of food and bumped into the side of the cage trying to escape their grasp. She popcorned twice, ducked her head, and unknowingly lunged forward into Chris’s waiting arms. She thrashed maniacally, her long furry hind paws scratching at his chest like snowshoes digging into the snow.
“Be careful of her back,” I shrieked, remembering Loretta’s warning. A rabbit’s skeleton makes up only 7 percent of their body weight and is far more fragile than a dog’s or a cat’s. If a bunny swings its head backwards with too much force, it can fracture its own spine.
Hanging onto the bunny, Chris leapt up the stairs three steps at a time toward the playroom, ignoring me. Julie chased after him like someone had just stolen her favorite lip gloss.
“It’s amazing how Flop survived her first week in the house with the five of you,” said my mom, with a look that told me she had gone through this herself. “Pets are more resilient than you think, honey.”
My mother’s words always had a way of comforting me. I am not sure what I would have done without her and Carol in my life. They were strong, confident, and loving women, and we were completely devoted to each other. When I fell ill, their lives, too, were turned upside down. But heartache and sadness often draw families closer together. My mother became my private nurse, chief cook, and bottle washer; and Carol was her assistant. Some mornings, Mom would ring the doorbell at eight o’clock, carrying a casserole that she had already prepared for us to have for dinner that night. She would help out with breakfast and drive Chris to nursery school once Julie got on the bus, which conveniently stopped at the end of our driveway. My sweet little preschool boy and his adoring grandmother would walk out the front door hand in hand—Chris with his Batman backpack and Nana with her loving smile—as I pushed back my tears, unable to accept the fact that, at least for a while, I was physically broken. Instead I tried to focus on the miraculous bond that she and Chris were forming, which would remain indelible for the rest of their lives. On the nights that Ward had to work late, Carol would stop by on her way home from her job to help out with dinner and bath time for the kids and to offer her sisterly support and love, which I cherished. Carol and I had grown up sharing a bedroom, a wardrobe, our deepest confidences, and our hearts.
And so tonight was no different. My mother and sister were here to welcome the newest member of our family, witnesses to one of the most important and integral moments of our story.
“Can I help you clean the bunny’s cage?” asked Carol, snapping me out of my daydreaming state. Mom also insisted on lending a hand. The McMansion was a mess and was already starting to smell. Shamelessly, I wasted no time taking up the offer. With the three of us working, the cleanup went quickly. We were piling fresh litter into the cage when hysterical sounds of laughter came roaring down from the family room. When we reached the top of the stairs, Chris was sitting on the floor with the bunny plopped on his lap. She was facing outward and resting on her haunches, as if she were sitting on a chair, while he
clutched her torso.
“Mom, watch!” he exclaimed with a cunning “Dennis the Menace” look on his face. “She reminds me of a gumball machine.”
The baby bunny was popping out little brown balls from the small opening between her back legs—perfectly synchronized, one per second. They fell into a neat pile between Chris’s legs like raisinettes rolling off the assembly line into their box. The sideshow was so typical of Chris. He was mischievous and active, from the moment he was conceived, it seemed. He wreaked havoc on my body in utero, pounding my ribcage and most of my vital organs—and he was no different once he was born. Chris’s milestones in his baby book read: “Scaled the baby gate,” “climbed out of the highchair,” “popped the inflatable swimming pool,” and “third set of stitches,” instead of things like, “Sat up,” “rolled over,” and “uttered his first word.”
We lost count of the little brown balls after about forty. Carol glanced over at me as if to say, “Are you sure you know what you got yourself into?”
Fluffett’s intelligence slowly began to show itself over and over again. She quickly fell into a daily routine. She would eat her baby bunny pellets made out of timothy hay around seven in the morning and six at night, while grazing on her hay around the clock. Unlike dogs, rabbits limit their intake of food and water, so Fluffett’s supplies were plentiful. She had enough hay to feed a pony and enough water to survive a ten-year drought.
It seemed as if everything that went into Fluffett’s body came out multiplied. By morning, her cage had enough brown pellets to supply an army of sharpshooters, and the smell of urine could burn the hairs inside of your nose. But thankfully, there were no cecotropes, which are grapelike clusters of soft, foul-smelling feces. Bunnies are supposed to ingest cecotropes to balance their intestinal flora—bunny probiotics. Sometimes I would spot Fluffett eating her probiotics, usually very early in the morning, dipping her head between her legs and plucking them from her butt.
My first attempt at litter-training Fluffett was partially successful. Once a rabbit picks their favorite place to urinate in, they can be taught to use a litter pan in that same spot. Fluffett had already peed in one corner of her cage.
It was a cold, damp, and dreary weekday. After reading the training instructions thoroughly, I filled the triangular litter pan from our bunny welcome package with pine shavings and placed it in the corner of the cage where she had been urinating. I left the bottom of the cage bare. The hard plastic bottom was supposed to be unappealing to our Baby Einstein. I piled some hay on top of the litter for Fluffett to munch on while she hopefully did her business, adding a few leaves of romaine lettuce on top as an extra incentive. Timothy hay, which should make up about 90 percent of a bunny’s diet, is essential for proper digestion and helps grind down their teeth, which grow up to five inches a year. Fresh greens should only account for about 10 percent of a bunny’s diet, as too much can cause diarrhea. I was already becoming a bunny expert.
By the time I finished prepping the cage, Fluffett was relaxing on the carpet by the back door. Her torso was flush against the floor and her legs were stretched out behind her like a pair of skis. Her hocks pointed toward the ceiling, and a perfectly shaped rear end formed at the juncture of her legs. She looked irresistible and perfectly content. I wondered if I should bother her or wait for another opportune moment to test her intelligence. But I was too excited. I wanted to surprise Julie and Chris when they got home from school.
“Let’s try to litter train you, little girl.” I said, curling up next to her. She nudged my cheek with the side of her head like a cat would and chinned me for the first time. Rabbits have scent glands on their chin. I was officially a marked woman.
Immediately, Fluffett sensed that something was different in her cage. She sniffed the plastic bottom curiously and bumped the litter pan with her head, trying to flip it over. She stood up on her hind legs and peered up through the top of the cage at me, looking befuddled.
“You’re so smart, Fluffett,” I exclaimed, the way I would if Julie or Chris had just handed me a great mid-term exam.
Fluffett flipped her head with a casualness that was endearing and hopped right into the litter pan. I giggled as she started tossing the lettuce up into the air like a baby seal knocking a ball. When the lettuce was torn to shreds, she sat down into what Julie called her Egyptian Sphinx position—I referred to it as Fluffett “plumping like a hen”—and nibbled on her hay.
I grabbed a pillow from the window seat in our kitchen and an Arthritis Today magazine, one of my reference guides on how to live with chronic pain, and sat on the floor next to her cage. Fluffett slowly devoured the lettuce first and then the entire pile of hay while she sat perched among the pine shavings. When she finally hopped out of the litter pan after about thirty minutes, there was a neat pile of poop pellets in the middle of the pine shavings. I jumped for joy, feeling a lightness I had not felt in a long time.
“Good job, Fluffett! I am so proud of you,” I cried, bending down easily to kiss the top of her head, before catching myself. Usually, it wasn’t easy for me to bend my body without feeling the pain.
Fluffett hopped along the plastic bottom as if playing hopscotch, but then she abruptly crouched down and peed there, outside of the litter pan. She slipped in the small puddle and looked around, confused. Hopping back into the pine shavings in the litter pan, she licked her now-yellow thumper paws (my affectionate name for her back paws), stretching each one up to her mouth like she was engaging in a yoga pose. She was cleaning herself like a cat would. Amazingly, her paws were white within minutes. Then she buried her head in her private parts and licked those until they, too, were pristine. I thought she was absolutely the cutest, smartest little bunny.
I sat back on the recliner with a feeling of great satisfaction and happiness, staring in awe at the newest member of our family, now cuddled in my arms. I rewarded her good behavior with a bunny snack, a corn stick, and fell back into my thoughts.
Strangely, I had barely noticed my pain all morning.
Chapter 5
I stared solemnly out my bedroom window past the melting patches of snow mixed among the winter grass, feeling guilty and heartbroken that our upcoming family vacation to Florida for winter break had to be postponed because of my health. As we were settling into our new lives with a rabbit, I was also battling a resurgence of extremely intense aches and pains. A flu virus had sent my connective tissue disease and fibromyalgia into a flare-up, and I was pummeled with crushing fatigue and unrelenting, intensified pain. The kind of pain that stops you in your tracks and puts your life on hold. Pain that can make you cry. It was frustrating and overwhelming living in constant fear that any virus, injury, or stressful event could turn manageable pain into something unmanageable.
The rheumatologist had started me on a large dose of steroids to curtail the inflammation in my system, and I struggled not to focus on my pain. I strongly believe that the mind plays an important role in how you perceive pain. In the past, I would have turned on soothing music or read a good book or soaked in the bathtub with lavender and Epsom salt—but now I played with our bunny. Holed up in the house, I set up elaborate mazes made out of sofa pillows, books, and baskets for Fluffett to race through. I made a bunny village out of cardboard boxes for her to rummage or hide in. I put empty toilet paper rolls and newspaper in her path and watched as her tiny teeth grabbed them and tried to toss them out of the way. I sprawled out on the floor and let her scamper all over me. I cuddled her against my chest while I answered emails or simply talked to her. I was smitten with our little bunny.
I had begun to recognize and understand some of Fluffett’s habits, as well as her likes and dislikes. After she drank, she would shake her head or sneeze to get rid of any droplets of water that were on her whiskers. If I put hay in front of her and she wasn’t hungry, she would burrow in the pile and toss the strands aside. When she sat back on her haunches with her head straight up and ears erect, it meant, “I’m here. L
ook at me.” And we all did, nonstop. If she wanted to be petted, she would crouch down with her front paws forward and her chin and dewlap (the fur underneath a rabbit’s chin) flush against the floor, waiting to be stroked. Our pet store bunny manual and the Internet both described the latter pose as the “submissive position,” but Julie and I agreed that the name had to go.
When Fluffett was well rested and full of stored-up bunny energy, she would race around the sofas a dozen or more times with breakneck speed like a NASCAR driver until she tired herself out. She would literally fall over onto her side, making a thump. I ran over the first time she collapsed, fearing she’d had a heart attack. As prey animals on the bottom of the food chain, bunnies are high-strung and naturally fearful. Loud noises or sudden movements can frighten them, causing them to freeze or bolt. If they are terrified, they can literally drop dead from fear. But not our Fluffett, who loved the sound of the vacuum and thrived among the noise and commotion in our house.
Fluffett also made it clear when she wanted to relax and not be bothered. With no warning, she would sometimes sprawl out with her belly flush to the carpet, her head up, and her hind legs stretched behind her like a set of skis. The “leave me alone” position. As hard as that was, we respected her wishes.
The absolute cutest thing she did was to binky or popcorn. A bunny will start out hopping in one direction and then twist while in midair so it is facing another direction when it lands. If they do multiple binkies, you never know where they will end up. Their ability to binky and stop on a dime are convenient ways they use to escape predators. Fluffett could also wiggle into the smallest spaces as deftly as she had wiggled her way into our hearts. One day, I found her under Julie’s desk nestled in one of her shoes.