Bunny Boy and Me

by Nancy Laracy

  My head spun around like one of those ventriloquist dolls. “What did you say, Chris?”

  “I told Fluffett I’ll take her out again sometime,” he said indignantly.

  Venom spewed from my breath. “If anything happens to this rabbit, you better start running and don’t look back. I mean it.”

  “We know you mean it, Mom.” Julie and Chris laughed together. “That’s the scary part.”

  “You better be scared,” I said, doing a bit of acting at this point, of course!

  “What about all of the dirt?” Julie asked. Fluffett was licking herself profusely. Her once-pink tongue looked like beef jerky. “She’s filthy.”

  “Let’s give her a bath, kids.”

  “She’d lick herself clean in the wild,” Chris retorted, but I wasn’t listening. I was imagining streams of mud creeping through Fluffett’s intestines and dirt strewn all over the house.

  Julie ran upstairs and came back with an old hooded baby towel and her favorite Bath and Body Works shower gel, Cotton Candy. Climbing up and down the steps too often in a day can exacerbate my leg and back pain, so I was happy for Julie’s help. Sometimes my arms and legs felt so heavy it seemed they were tied to cement blocks, and the smallest movement took effort. But I was determined to clean Fluffett. We filled the kitchen sink halfway with warm water, and I spread out clean dishtowels on the counter. Chris looked on disapprovingly.

  Slowly, I lowered Fluffett’s hind legs into the water first, holding her torso firmly under her armpits. She went ballistic, making the squirrel episode look tame. Her head swung backwards and her hind legs thumped against the side of the sink, splashing water everywhere. I struggled to hold onto her slippery body while Julie, under my guidance, quickly squeezed some shower gel onto her underside, which resembled a sandpit instead of a pile of cotton.

  “Use the sprayer to rinse her, but gently,” I managed to say. “Quickly!” My main focus was keeping Fluffett from thrashing too much and injuring herself. As the soap and water washed away the dirt and flowed down along her scut (the area beneath a bunny’s tail), we stared at her underside and shrieked in disbelief. Little bunny foo foo was not a foo foo at all. Fluffett’s male anatomy had been buried underneath thick, snow-white fur. It was impossible to imagine how we had missed it. Fluffett was a boy.

  Julie and I started moping. Chris mimed doing the hula. The men would have the upper hand in the house, now.

  “We’ll have to change her name, kids.” I felt a sense of excitement mounting over picking a more appealing name.

  “I still like Fluffett,” Julie replied in a solemn tone, clearly disappointed with our discovery.

  “But Fluffett does not sound appropriate for a boy. I like the name Bunny Boy.” I was ready to put up a good fight. No male pet of mine would have a name like Fluffett.

  “But we like Fluffett.”

  “Who cleans the cage and feeds the bunny?” I joked, desperate for some leverage.

  “We can call him both names,” they replied.

  “Precisely.” I pulled back the hood of the towel and kissed our male bunny’s ears.

  And so, Bunny Boy went on record as the official name for our red satin rabbit.

  Chapter 9

  Bunny Boy, as we now called him, was utterly lovable, spoiled, and demanding. My affection for him grew with each passing day. I found his quirky demands simply enchanting. If I drank my morning coffee before he had his slice of apple, he would thump loudly. If I sat down to read the newspaper or to answer some emails when he was in the mood to cuddle, he would dive at my ankles and nibble my toes until I picked him up. He had an endless supply of colorful and tasty chewable treats to satisfy any bunny’s appetite, as well as plenty of toys, which he left all over the house. I had already been accused by my family of favoring him.

  Bunny Boy seemed to adjust nicely to the whole gender and name change, but it took me some time. I had yet to come up with the right tune to sing to him when he plumped in his litter pan. I spent more than sufficient time practicing, “How’s my boy?” giving special attention to tone, pitch, and inflection.

  One morning, I walked downstairs with noticeably more spring in my steps, which, according to my family, was the new norm since Bunny Boy. He was lying on his side in the corner of his cage. He looked so peaceful. I noticed a flutter in my stomach—almost childlike.

  “How’s my boy?” I said, reaching down to pet his head. “Did you sleep well, little man?”

  “She doesn’t talk to us that way, does she Chris?” I overheard Julie say teasingly from the family room upstairs.

  “Not to Dad, either,” Chris replied.

  Bunny Boy rolled over on all fours as if his body was too heavy to turn. Instead of charging out when he saw me, he hopped out of this cage slowly, painfully. His big ears were lying flat on top of his head—not erect like antennas as they usually were—and his jet-black eyes were translucent. He nudged my bare foot with his nose and just sat there instead of climbing up my shin. I picked him up, puzzled. His nose wasn’t moist, and it was barely twittering. His food bowl looked untouched, and there were only a few pellets in his litter pan instead of the usual large pile.

  “There’s something wrong with Bunny Boy!” I yelled, with a sense of fear I somehow knew was warranted. Julie and Chris leapt down the stairs two at a time. I flipped through the yellow pages anxiously and found a veterinarian in Franklin Lakes.

  We raced through the vet’s door, past a dozen or more pets and their owners. Business seemed to be thriving. Bunny Boy laid on my chest with his chin on my shoulder while I filled out the paperwork. The receptionist looked at me quizzically; I wasn’t sure why. The office was spacious and cheerful. In the lobby, a large tropical fish tank was placed against the far wall and bookcases were stocked with pet books and various supplies. Alongside the reception desk were half a dozen cages full of rescue kittens.

  A technician named Kelly led us to an examination room down the hallway. I looked around at the diplomas hanging on the pale-green walls.

  “No wonder the lobby was so crowded, Bunny Boy,” I whispered. The veterinarian was a graduate of Cornell University, an Ivy League school in the northeast, and she had done her internship at the University of Pennsylvania, another Ivy League member. “Now we just need a good bedside manner, buddy.”

  Moments later, the door opened. An attractive young woman with a distinct air of confidence walked in and introduced herself. She didn’t look much older than thirty-five.

  “Hi, I’m Doctor Cheryl Welch,” she said warmly. “So, tell me what’s going on with Bunny Boy.” Her casualness was refreshing.

  “I don’t think Bunny Boy has eaten or pooped in over twelve hours, and he’s very listless. And his nose is dry and still. His whiskers aren’t fluttering …” I was rambling. I pulled Bunny Boy closer to me, fearful for what could be wrong.

  “Is that so, buddy?” she asked, gently petting Bunny Boy’s head while looking immediately at his nose. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Laracy, I’d like to have an assistant come in and help while I examine Bunny Boy. Some bunnies bite or scratch when they’re being examined. Or even thump. And the force of their hind legs could break your nose.”

  While it was hard for me to imagine Bunny Boy breaking anyone’s nose, I responded, “Of course.”

  Kelly returned and gently restrained Bunny Boy around his torso while Dr. Welch examined his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth thoroughly with a lighted scope. She listened to his heart and lungs with her stethoscope and then his intestines twice. But for an occasional swipe at the scopes, Bunny Boy behaved remarkably.

  “Is he always this calm and sweet?” asked Dr. Welch.

  I thought back to the day when he went postal during his first bath.

  “He is,” I said, tongue-in-cheek.

  “Bunny Boy most likely has a blockage in his gastrointestinal tract,” she said matter-of-factly. “Bunnies must have food passing through their intestines at all times or their GI tract sh
uts down quickly, causing a condition known as gut stasis. They can die within thirty-six hours. How long did you say it has been since he last ate?”

  “Twelve hours, right Mom?” said Julie.

  Did she say die? I counted the hours in my head, trying to figure out the last time I had seen Bunny Boy eat or graze.

  “Could Bunny Boy have eaten something in the house that he shouldn’t have or has he had any new chew toys?”

  “New toys?” said Chris. “Bunny Boy has the newest, most innovative chew toys on the market.”

  Dr. Welch flashed him a smile. “I bet he does.”

  I pictured Bunny Boy’s fluorescent-colored wooden chew sticks shredded and stacked in the corner of his cage like a pile of colorful timber and wondered if they were the culprit.

  “We’ll use a drug called Propulsid to help Bunny Boy’s gastrointestinal tract push along anything that could be causing the blockage,” said Dr. Welch. I recognized the name—I, too, had taken the drug once for reflux.

  “What about giving him syrup of ipecac to get him to throw up whatever could be causing the blockage?” I asked.

  “Bunnies have a one-way esophagus and cannot throw up,” she explained. “Our safest and best bet is the Propulsid. If that doesn’t work, the other option would be surgery, but the postoperative mortality rate among rabbits is extremely high.”

  She spoke in a manner that conveyed the intelligence and experience of someone older. But I was stunned. Surgery? Mortality rate?

  “Rabbits can be frail creatures, I am afraid to say,” Dr. Welch remarked. “They succumb to pain and discomfort quickly. They also hide their ailments very well. Often until it is too late. But I think we caught this early enough. I do.”

  “More than dogs or cats?”

  “For sure.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder with the tenderness you would receive from a dear friend, not a veterinarian you had just met. She was lovely.

  “I’d like you to give Bunny Boy some pineapple juice in a dropper and baby food—carrots—to help soften his stools. You may have to force-feed him.”

  Force-feed a member of the Food Family?

  “Hopefully you should start to see half-formed fecal pellets, then full-size pellets within the next day or so. If Bunny Boy gets more than a little diarrhea, call me immediately. We run a slippery slope. Too much diarrhea can be dangerous.”

  What’s more than a little? I thought. I glanced over at the kids. They were speechless, a rare occurrence.

  Dr. Welch made some final notations in Bunny Boy’s chart and weighed him. He was four pounds, nine ounces, much more than I would have expected.

  “Is Bunny Boy fully grown?” I asked.

  “He’s only eight months old, is that correct?”

  “Yes. He was born in December.”

  “Bunny Boy’s peak weight should be about nine pounds, give or take. He won’t reach that until he’s well over a year old.”

  “Nine pounds? That’s impossible,” I exclaimed. “They said he was a dwarf.”

  “Who told you that?”

  I shook my head. “The same person who told us he was a girl.”

  “Maybe a dwarf elephant!” she laughed, strumming Bunny Boy’s ears happily through her fingers. “Bunny Boy’s a red satin, and he’s going to be a big boy.”

  I’m not sure how we had missed that critical fact on the Internet. We were certainly learning hilarious, and some harrowing, things by trial and error. Finally, Chris was able to muster up some positive emotion to break the silence.

  “If I can’t have a big dog, at least I’ll have a big rabbit.”

  In the car ride to the supermarket, Bunny Boy laid on his side on the backseat between Julie and Chris, barely moving. As I scanned the aisles searching for baby food, carrots, and pineapple juice, a rush of emotions hit me like a ton of bricks. I wandered over to the checkout line like a lost soul. My cell phone buzzed. It was Ward.

  “I’m not sure,” I mumbled, feigning poor cell phone reception when he asked how much I had spent at the veterinarian. “What does it matter anyway?”

  The ten-minute ride home seemed interminable. Conversation was limited. We gave new meaning to the phrase gloom and doom. Tenderly, Julie carried Bunny Boy into the house and placed him in his litter pan. He loved the comfort of the soft pine shavings. He crouched down and closed his eyes. We had never seen him close his eyes completely before. When he napped, they were always half open. Any remaining battery juice in his body seemed to be dwindling. It was scary.

  I offered to make breakfast, but nobody was hungry. So we organized Bunny Boy’s medicine and food.

  “The drugs are crushed. The instruments are sterile,” I said as I worked, trying to lighten the mood.

  “The pineapple juice is ready,” Chris mimicked.

  Julie sat Bunny Boy on her lap while I lowered the spoon of carrots and crushed Propulsid toward his mouth. His tongue thrust forward quickly, like a rattlesnake, lapping up the carrots and catching us by surprise.

  “Bunny Boy likes it!” she exclaimed. Chris grabbed the spoon out of my hand and took his turn, bringing it toward Bunny Boy’s mouth like an airplane. I managed to chuckle, remembering my days of using the same tactic to get Chris to eat baby cereal. Bunny Boy lapped up the second spoon, and suddenly he was up on all fours, licking his chops with great satisfaction. I released the syringe of pineapple juice into the corner of his mouth and his tongue flicked from side to side, savoring every drop. He clearly loved the new menu. In a moment of weakness and relief, I promised Bunny Boy that I would put away his cage and that he could roam free at night if he would start going to the bathroom.

  “We can’t live without you buddy,” Chris whispered in Bunny Boy’s flat ears. “We love you.”

  Life without Bunny Boy? I refused to let the possibility enter my mind. Everything was going to be fine, wasn’t it?

  By midafternoon, Bunny Boy still had not gone to the bathroom. It was unnerving. I would have welcomed a big brown pile of poop with open arms. We fed him again, and he ate with the same enthusiasm, but when he finished he quickly fell back to sleep.

  It was nearly dinnertime when Bunny Boy sat up in his litter pan and maneuvered into his favorite position to take a dump. Fifteen tense minutes passed. Then twenty. I couldn’t wait any longer. I lifted him off of his litter pan as he resisted. Miraculously, I had interrupted his long-awaited bowel movement. The kids and I joined arms and swung around in a circle, celebrating the pile of half formed pellets.

  By morning, Bunny Boy had eaten a humongous pile of hay and filled his litter pan with enough “full-size capers” to supply an Italian bistro.

  Thankfully, Bunny Boy had dodged the first bullet. We had survived the first of many medical crises that were yet to come.

  Chapter 10

  As I already knew all too well, life is unpredictable and scary. And you always seem to be reminded of it when you’re settling down to cuddle with your favorite bunny or loved one. I was sitting in the sunroom with Bunny Boy tucked under my arm and a newspaper in the other, the warmth of my rabbit radiating across my lap, when the phone rang. Ward brought it to me. I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t good.

  “It’s your brother, Tom.”

  I could hear the anguish in Tom’s voice. Unconsciously, I hugged Bunny Boy tighter. “It’s Audrey,” Tom said, choking back the tears. Bunny Boy became very still, as if he were waiting along with me for the bad news. “She’s got stage three thyroid cancer. She needs to have surgery immediately. We are going to need some help, Nance. Can you come to Denver?”

  My heart immediately leapt to my throat. Tom’s wife, Audrey, was only thirty-eight years old and their boys, the “Irish twins” of the family, were just four and five. How could this be happening? Suddenly, I realized I was standing, though I didn’t remember getting up. The newspaper I had been reading was scattered on the floor by my feet. Somehow, Bunny Boy was still tucked under my arm, holding on for dear life.
I put down the phone and stroked Bunny Boy’s soft ears while Ward purchased a flight on the Internet.

  I gazed through the wall of windows and past the tall trees, dismissing their beauty. “I’m so sad, Bunny Boy,” I said. He nuzzled closer, as if he understood. I suddenly thought of Flop and realized that her compassionate spirit had somehow been reincarnated into a red satin rabbit. How had I ever lived without this bunny in my life?

  I called my mother and found her in tears. Tom had called her first. She had nursed Tommy back to health when he was a sick child with an intensity that only a mother can muster, and their special bond persevered after he got well. Tom was her baby, the only one of her children who had inherited her black hair and dark brown eyes.

  My mother and I made plans to fly out the next evening. Mom had had back surgery three weeks prior, but in true Mom fashion she insisted on making the trip for her son and daughter-in-law. That night, I found my rosary beads in their usual spot—under my bed pillow—and I prayed fervently while Bunny Boy purred softly beside me, doing his bunny best to comfort me.

  The next morning, Bunny Boy pranced out from under the dining room chair, wide-eyed and bushy tailed, as if trying to convince me that today was a new day, reason enough to celebrate life. I tried to disguise my sadness and the fact that my joints and muscles were aching due to a stress-induced flare-up. “Where’s my boy, and what did you do?” I said in my best cheerful voice.

  Bunny Boy picked up his stride and tore across the oriental rug when he heard me. He tripped on the fringe and slid across the kitchen tile, plunging into the cabinet that housed overcrowded pots and pans. The door flew open and a barrage of Teflon came crashing to the floor, nearly hitting him. But Bunny Boy was too fast. Using the force of his back legs, he sent one of the smaller pots sailing across the floor and swatted another with his front paws, flipping it upside down and right side up. Then he sat in it and peed. I was shocked. I snuck up behind Bunny Boy and crouched down to his level, looking right into his eyes. “Where’s my boy, and what did you do?” I repeated, trying my hardest to be mad at him but not quite managing. Bunny Boy wrapped his little front paws around my knees gingerly and stretched his head up to kiss me. His brand of bunny therapy worked like a charm. For ten seconds, I had forgotten all about my brother and Audrey. But then another thought hit me. I was going to have to leave Ward in charge of both the kids and the bunny. How was he going to handle that with his schedule?