by Nancy Laracy
Twenty hot compresses and forty-eight hours later, the kids and I dropped Bunny Boy off for his surgery. We waited breathlessly together for the doctor’s call. My mother came over to comfort us and pray. When Dr. Welch finally called, it was as if she sensed our dreadful anticipation, and she chimed right in with the good news.
“Bunny Boy did great,” she warbled into the phone. I gave the thumbs up to the kids and my mother, and we all cheered spontaneously. The hot compresses had paid off. As if there hadn’t been enough good news for one day, Tom called right after I hung up with Dr. Welch. Audrey’s pathology had come back clean. The cancer hadn’t metastasized. It was a terrific day.
My close friend Mary Beth brought me to pick Bunny Boy up that afternoon. During my many years upon this planet, I had learned that girlfriends play a vital role in your life, each at different times. Mary Beth had strong faith. She had been a source of tremendous inspiration during the earlier days of my illness and had also noticed how my pain, energy level, and attitude on life had improved since Bunny Boy’s arrival. She already knew how much we needed each other.
I took one look at Bunny Boy, who was wrapped in a fleece blanket, and gasped. The fur on his neck had been shaved, and he had a necklace of stitches almost identical to Audrey’s. Three similar tubes, like the ones Audrey had post-op, hung from the middle of the incision. It was eerie and shocking. The enormous boo-boo made him look especially tiny. When I held him, I was afraid I might hurt him.
“Keep Bunny Boy warm while the anesthesia wears off,” Dr. Welch instructed. A hot water bottle was tucked inside the blanket. She handed me a bag. “He has had pain medication that should last twenty-four hours. Give him some of the critical care liquid food supplements that’s in this bag in a few hours. Force-feed him if you have to. He also had his first penicillin injection. Bunny Boy will need them every other day for six weeks, along with an oral antibiotic. The instructions and supplies are also in the bag.”
Dr. Welch ended her instructions with a smile. “Please bring him back the day after tomorrow, and we’ll show you how to give him his shot.”
I was unnerved. While I had given myself many injections of anti-viral drugs and B vitamins over the course of my own illness, I couldn’t imagine giving Bunny Boy shots. I was too emotionally attached to him. I walked out in a daze.
What could have been a tense ride home turned into a sitcom. It was ninety-five degrees outside and the air conditioning wasn’t on. With Bunny Boy and his hot water bottle on my lap, I broke into an intense sweat—like those people who voluntarily put themselves through hot yoga.
“Can we please put on the air conditioning?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient. Reluctantly, Mary Beth slowly turned up the dial. All of a sudden, a smelly, pink, milky substance splattered everywhere—all over my furry patient and me. In a frenzy, Mary Beth turned the dial back up by mistake. Bunny Boy licked one drop of the sweet stuff and scrambled to get out of his blanket. He teetered like the Pillsbury doughboy from the anesthesia, knocking his water bottle to the floor. The cap must have been loose, and water poured onto the rug. To top it off, he peed on the seat. In less than five minutes, the van was completely funkified—in Technicolor.
“One of my children spilled their strawberry milkshake down the air ducts this morning,” said Mary Beth, laughing. “Never a dull moment with kids in the house.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Bunny Boy wobbled around like a drunken pool player who had lost a fight. He went right back to thrashing magazines with his teeth, headbutting things in his path, and squeezing under the coffee tables. I was afraid he would rip out one of his tubes or the stitches. His face was black and blue, and his head had swollen to twice its normal size. He fit right in with the Laracy family—two separate prenatal ultrasounds on both our children three and a half years apart, two different technicians, and the comments were identical.
“I can see that big heads run in the family,” each of them said, looking specifically at Ward.
Shortly after dinner, Bunny Boy tried to drink from his bottle. He moved his head in all sorts of contorted positions, then banged the metal tip with his head. With his swollen head, he couldn’t maneuver into the right position to lick the ball. He took his frustrations out on the three tubes hanging from his neck. Though he was unsteady on his feet, there was nothing wrong with his eye-paw coordination. I intercepted immediately.
“Don’t even think about touching those things,” I said sternly. Bunny Boy swung at the tubes again, taunting me. I got down on the floor and put my face right up to his nose, repeating my threat like the nuns at Catholic grammar school used to do to me.
“Maybe Bunny Boy can drink from a bowl. He’s a highly intelligent animal,” teased Chris. Chris and I were still battling the same ongoing argument—that I thought bunnies were more intelligent than he did. Bunny Boy flipped the first bowl of water upside down and sloshed his front paws around in the water. I poured water into a heavier, shallower bowl, but he bumped it with his head and looked up at us when it didn’t flip. Then, being the smart animal he was, Bunny Boy moved the tubes out of his way with his left paw and lapped up the water as if he were a dog or a cat. He was simply amazing.
I took advantage of the moment and filled a large syringe with his critical care food supplement. We tried wrapping a towel loosely around his neck as a bib, but he grabbed it with his front teeth and tossed it to the floor. I placed the tip of the syringe near his mouth, and he started sucking down the apple banana goop so fast it oozed out of the side of his mouth. He ate seven large syringes of food before he finally stopped. I was afraid he would explode. Covered in food, he looked like a green monster, the floor beneath him a swamp. But I was so excited to see him eating that I didn’t give the mess a second thought.
We brought Bunny Boy’s cage, which he no longer used, upstairs to my bedroom that night. I placed it within inches of my side of the bed, near the nightlight where I could watch him carefully. I successfully lured him into his safe haven with a new wicker toy and a spoon of melted yogurt drops.
“It’s just for a few nights, pal. It’s for your own safety,” I said. Bunny Boy didn’t look convinced. He paced his cage relentlessly that night and clawed at the top rungs, looking for an escape route. Ward resorted to sleeping with a pillow wrapped over his ears. Around two in the morning, I caught Bunny Boy swiping the tubes.
“Please don’t touch the tubes, little buddy,” I hissed, trying not to wake my finally sleeping husband. Defiantly, Bunny Boy whacked them again. I slung myself on top of the cage.
“What part of ‘Don’t touch those tubes or stitches’ don’t you understand?” I said, as if I were talking to the kids. Bunny Boy cowered in his litter pan and stared up at me, compliant. “Get some rest, Bunny Boy.”
But of course, he didn’t. Around four in the morning, Ward got up and went to sleep in the spare bedroom, mumbling what I think was something about a crepuscular animal, though it came out sounding a lot more like “crappy creature.” After all, Bunny Boy was depriving him of a second night of sleep.
• • •
Bunny Boy turned out to be far more resilient than anybody anticipated—which, we would come to realize over time, was just his style. Within a couple of days, he was nibbling on his food pellets, grazing on his hay, and drinking from a bowl like he had never heard of the word abscess.
“He’s drinking from a bowl?” Dr. Welch asked during his postsurgical check-up.
“Can you believe it?” I said, shaking my head.
She drew up a syringe of penicillin and effortlessly gave Bunny Boy his injection while I observed.
“Their skin is like leather, so use a dart-like motion when you give him his shot,” she said. Still, I had serious doubts about my ability to give Bunny Boy any of his injections.
“How are you, Mrs. Laracy?” she suddenly said. “You look a little tired.” Somehow, the moment felt right. I quickly told her of my own heart-wrenching medical journey a
nd explained that I, like Bunny Boy, was wrestling with autoimmune disease.
“Women are very strong creatures, aren’t we?” she said, smiling. I looked around at her thriving practice and her Ivy League credentials and the pictures of her children.
“Yes, we are,” I said, meaning it.
“By the way, Bunny Boy’s bloodwork was conclusive,” said Dr. Welch. “He is immune-compromised.”
“It’s a little ironic that I bought a bunny with an immune system problem, don’t you think?” I said.
She smiled. “Someone knew just where to put Bunny Boy, didn’t they?”
“Yes, they did,” I said. I knew that my dad who watched over me, and now Bunny Boy, too, probably had had a hand in this miraculous match-up.
Chapter 11
Bunny Boy’s delicate stature and my deep love for him made it too difficult for me to administer the shots of penicillin. My hands got sweaty and my body tensed up the first time I poked him. I was unsuccessful, leaving the milky-white substance trailing down his fur. Knowing how detail-oriented and methodical Ward was, I asked for his help. Ward was the epitome of quiet strength when situations required it.
“My billing rate is around three hundred and fifty dollars an hour, Nance,” he said with a surly smile meant to relax me. I gave him one of my favorite looks, one he couldn’t refuse.
Some shots went better than others. Every night around eight o’ clock, I would hunt down Bunny Boy and place him on a freshly cleaned towel on the kitchen counter. I’d gently secure his hips, apologizing to him for what we were about to do, and Ward would gather up his scruff and give him the penicillin. Then, Bunny Boy got his rewards. A kiss from me. A hug from Ward. And a tiny piece of fruit. By the fifth shot, Bunny Boy barely seemed to notice.
Things were rolling along just fine in the house again. We only had one more week of shots left to do. I thought the worst was over. Then, one morning, I found Bunny Boy lying on the throw rug by the back door, covered in diarrhea. He looked like one of the animals in the BP oil commercials that had rolled in an oil slick. I sprinted to the phone and dialed Dr. Welch.
“Stop giving him the oral antibiotic and any food other than hay,” she said with a sense of urgency that frightened me. “Give him some water in a syringe and lots of hay, and call me if Bunny Boy gets lethargic. I will be in all day and will check back with you before I leave at four thirty.”
I stood there, holding the phone away from my ear, thinking, What’s next? Then I yelled up the stairs for help with the clean-up.
“You wanted that animal,” Ward remarked. “Bathe him and lock him up in his cage, Nance. Let’s keep the mess contained.”
I let out a sigh of frustration. Ward was so logical, but I didn’t want logical right now.
“I can’t. I promised Bunny Boy that I would never lock him in his cage again.”
Ward washed the kitchen floor and the unsightly brown mess that had marked the stairs and the family room. The kids—bribed with their favorite dessert, Black Bottom cupcakes—and I gave Bunny Boy a bath. He barely resisted when I placed him in the warm, sudsy water filled with lavender bubble bath. It worried me. With the air conditioning set at what felt like subzero temperatures in the house, we decided to blow-dry Bunny Boy’s fur. The gentle humming of the blow-dryer on the lowest speed relaxed his tense body instead of startling him.
I spent the rest of the day quarantined in the kitchen with Bunny Boy, giving him periodic butt baths and taking any help I could get with clean-up duty. I refused to cage him, though I knew it would make my job easier. My bunny and I played and cuddled. I didn’t care that he was dirty and smelly. For the rest of the day, Bunny Boy drank enthusiastically from his bowl and devoured his pile of hay as if nothing were wrong. As night fell, I made a makeshift bed out of some blankets and slept on the floor while my family abandoned me for the warmth of their beds. Being the crepuscular animal he was, Bunny Boy tore around the room like a cyclone, unfazed by his bowel problems. He scurried all over me while I longed for the softness of my bed. He nuzzled shamelessly in my neck, the peach fuzz around his incision tickling me. I hugged him tight and prayed. “It’s just a little diarrhea, another bump in the road,” I tried to convince myself.
I must have finally dozed off from sheer exhaustion, only to be woken by Julie’s beautiful voice and smile.
“Mom, look!” she whispered.
I was lying on my side with my knees pulled up toward my chest. Bunny Boy was tucked into the small space between my chest and legs, so close to my heart that I could feel his breathing. I picked my head up and glanced backward over my hips and saw what Julie was referring to. There was a pile of pellets at the bottom of my blanket, but no diarrhea. In that moment, any pain I felt from sleeping on the floor seemed meaningless. I was ecstatic and relieved.
“I think Bunny Boy is going to be just fine, honey,” I said, yawning, and returned to my fetal position.
Chapter 12
“My CRP level is seventeen?” I gasped.
I was on the phone with my rheumatologist, Dr. Pasik. I hung up, feeling temporarily beaten down. The creatine reactive protein (CRP) level in a healthy person is supposed to be zero. Seventeen was way out of the acceptable range, which meant there was significant inflammation throughout my body, despite my being on steroids for the past six weeks. And unfortunately, when my connective tissue disease flared up, the fibromyalgia usually did as well. It was a double whammy. Dealing with the different symptoms, medications, and underlying systemic issues of two diseases was not for the faint of heart.
Thankfully I did not suffer from depression or anxiety, which is often seen in fibromyalgia patients. Irritable bowel syndrome is another symptom that plagues fibromyalgia patients—and after struggling with the awful syndrome for almost twenty years, I managed to control it by going on a strict sugar-free and yeast-free diet and a three-month protocol of Diflucan, an antifungal drug. To treat my nerve pain, I had tried medications like Elavil, Lyrica, Neurontin, and Prozac but saw no significant relief; instead, I suffered the cognitive side effects like confusion, fatigue, and a feeling of being detached from my body. Chronic pain is draining, and I knew I couldn’t endure being in pain while feeling foggy or tired. After all, my above-average energy level was often what helped me cope with the pain.
In moments like these, when everything seemed too difficult, I was thankful for my mother’s medical knowledge, the inner strength she had passed onto me, and her reassuring way. Mom helped me to feel safe and to deal with the uncertainty and risks I often faced due to my connective tissue disease and fibromyalgia. Tom and Audrey were also just a phone call away.
Plus, I now had Bunny Boy. He was a godsend. His companionship, lighthearted persona, and own medical issues kept me from dwelling on mine. Nevertheless, on the day I received the phone call, I just wanted to feel sorry for myself. Our vacation to Kiawah Island, South Carolina, which we had planned in November during New Jersey’s school closures for the annual teacher’s convention, was rapidly approaching, and I didn’t want to cancel. I felt like I was in the middle of a bad rerun. We were going away, no matter what.
I lit the gas fireplace in the living room, grabbed the pale-green chenille blanket off the sofa, and propped myself up, prepared for a good cry. But Bunny Boy came binkying through the archway and across the rug, ruining my plan. I had to smile. Though he was clearly in pain after his surgery, Bunny Boy was still playful and affectionate, and he certainly didn’t mope. The penicillin shots and diarrhea seemed like nothing out of the ordinary for our rabbit—just a blip on the radar screen. So, I took Bunny Boy’s approach.
“It’s just a little inflammation,” I told myself, reaching down to pick him up. Yet, this time it seemed more serious than it had been in the past. I was finding it difficult to sit up for any length of time, let alone stand up on my own, and the softest pillow against my back felt like sandpaper, irritating my nerve endings.
Dr. Pasik, whom I had come to regard as my l
ife saver after I was referred to her when I suffered from acute parvovirus years back, doubled my dose of the steroid prednisone, and prescribed for me Voltaren, a different class of anti-inflammatories. I worried about adding Voltaren, which was notoriously hard on the gastrointestinal tract and could cause gastric bleeding. But what choice did I have? Celebrex, another anti-inflammatory we had tried, had been temporarily pulled off the market as new information emerged that there was a correlation between its use and heart attacks. With heart disease running in my family, I was glad to be off of that. We also tried a new pain cream compounded by our local pharmacy and consisting of Tramadol, Lidocaine, Neurontin, and Baclofen. And, of course, many hot packs came out of our medicine drawer.
Tina took on a few more responsibilities around the house, god bless her, and Mom made dinners for us and spent even more time with the kids, taking them to their various afterschool activities. I rested as much as possible while holding Bunny Boy captive, forcing him to listen to audiobook excerpts from Watership Down for the tenth time. The exquisite descriptions of the wild rabbits’ adventures were intoxicating. He had to enjoy them as much as I did.
A week into my accelerated treatment program, it happened—a day I would never forget. It was Monday morning. Ward had left for work and the children were at school. Tina had taken the day off and wouldn’t return until Tuesday morning. After an unusually long and difficult night of intense body pain and sweating, I lay in bed with the phone nearby so I could reach out to a few friends to keep from losing my mind. Bunny Boy was nestled on my chest, content as a little snuggle bug.
When I finally needed to go to the bathroom, I tried to lift Bunny Boy off to get up—but I couldn’t move. It felt like I was paralyzed. There was a disconnect between my brain and my body, and I was trapped inside. A sense of sheer panic hit me, an adrenaline rush, and I could feel my eyes widen as if I had just seen something shocking. I was terrified. What if there was a fire and I couldn’t get out of bed?