Bunny Boy and Me

by Nancy Laracy

  “Bunny Boy Laracy,” I exclaimed, half out of breath. “Dr. Quesenberry is expecting me.” An intern led us to the recovery room where she was waiting for us. “His heart has been stressed,” she said. “But he is resting comfortably.”

  Fear and sadness enveloped me. Had I expected too much of Bunny Boy? Had his body been through enough? He was stiff and motionless, and his usually big and beautiful eyes were barely open. His nose looked dry, and his breathing was shallow. My gut churned. My lips were bitten and scratched up from the stress. As I stared at my boy, almost afraid to touch him, I worried I had made the wrong decision to go ahead with the surgery. But somehow I knew my boy was still there.

  I leaned down and kissed Bunny Boy’s shaven face. Bunny Boy was fighting to stay alive. I was sure—for both of us. My hands started trembling as I softly petted the top of his head. “I love you, little man. Don’t give up, please,” I begged. I could feel my tears building up. Remarkably, Bunny Boy’s still whiskers suddenly started to flutter gently and his pale nose began to twitter. My bunny vital signs.

  “Bunny Boy definitely knows you’re his mommy,” said Dr. Quesenberry, clenching my hand.

  “We call him Iron Bunny,” added Ward, kissing Bunny Boy’s head tenderly.

  “Let’s try to get Bunny Boy stable. We’ll talk again in a few hours,” Dr. Quesenberry finally suggested, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. It was time for us to leave.

  I melted into Ward’s arms. The fear inside of me was bigger than I could handle. I wasn’t ready to lose Bunny Boy.

  By this point, my back and neck pain were intolerable. Burning nerve pain was shooting down my legs. Sitting in a hard, plastic chair in the hospital’s waiting room would be difficult, so we walked to the hotel next door and sat on a tufted sofa in a quiet, dimly lit corner of the room. I needed to keep up my own strength in order to take care of Bunny Boy. Ward had a much-needed beer while I took four Advil tablets, for inflammation, and one .25 mg Xanax for the nerve pain—a combination of meds that, over the years, I had found relieved the pain better than anything else. I laid on Ward’s lap and whimpered like a wounded puppy dog. A waitress at the hotel tried to make small talk but quickly realized we wanted to be alone. My cellphone buzzed at ten thirty. We were being called back.

  Bunny Boy’s breathing was still shallow and irregular. He was listless.

  “It’s going to take time,” Dr. Quesenberry reassured us. “Bunny Boy’s been through a lot. It’s a miracle he’s still with us.”

  There were a few more preparations they had to make, so Ward and I went out to the lobby to wait again. I prayed fervently to God. Don’t take Bunny Boy, not yet. I wasn’t ready. I thought about what life would be like without him. All the things I would miss. His warm, furry body. His twittering nose. His loving, steadfast companionship. His zest for life. I smiled, thinking about the time he challenged the squirrel or the time he rolled upside down in the PVC pipe. I marveled at the day he nudged the phone over to me while I lay semi-paralyzed on my bed. I cringed, remembering the time he broke his jaw and the time he hopped on my foot on the gas pedal, nearly killing us both.

  Two hours passed. Then three. We sat in silence. I was distracted, lost in thought, when I heard, “I think this little guy is ready to go home.”

  Dr. Quesenberry was standing beside us, holding a bundle in her arms. She looked relaxed. Bunny Boy’s beautiful head was peering out of a blue plaid blanket. I thought I would burst with joy.

  “Bunny Boy’s vital signs are good. I think he belongs at home with you now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I had assumed Bunny Boy would be staying overnight in the hospital. I was terrified to bring him home, so far away from medical care should something happen.

  “Rabbits do not do well alone, caged in a strange place overnight. We avoid that at all costs. Often, we do keep them here, but right now I believe Bunny Boy and his heart would be less stressed at home with you.”

  A rush of emotion came over me. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, buddy,” I said, apologizing. “Chris needed me. I love you so much, Bunny Boy.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. Dr. Quesenberry watched as Bunny Boy lifted his head ever so slightly and gazed up at me.

  “Bunny Boy is so strong, Mrs. Laracy, because he is so loved. That’s apparent. His will to survive surpasses anything I’ve ever seen in a bunny.”

  I tried to acknowledge her kind words with a simple, “Thank you.”

  We walked down the hallway toward the checkout counter. It was one in the morning. Ward greeted the cashier in a cheerful tone, despite the ungodly hour and everything we had been through. The bill was two pages long, totaling nineteen hundred dollars. Ward checked over each item carefully, unlike myself who, at that point, would have rolled it up and stuffed it in my purse without a second glance. I was exhausted, and I just wanted to get home with Bunny Boy.

  “So, let me get this straight,” he said to the cashier, “Bunny Boy died temporarily, and now you are charging me $250 to do CPR on a rabbit? For that amount of money, I want a demonstration.”

  The woman started scrolling down anxiously on her computer screen, trying to find that specific charge. “If you just give me a second, I can find—”

  “I was just joking,” Ward said, cracking a smile. “We are so grateful to the veterinarians that Bunny Boy is still alive. We knew the risks.”

  We should have insisted on the demonstration. A year and a half later, we would need it.

  • • •

  Once again, Iron Bunny had survived a near-death experience. Nothing kept him down for long. He recovered from this anesthesia quickly and ate his critical care food happily, propped in my left arm while I pushed the syringe with my right, just like I was feeding a baby. Bunny Boy’s head would bob forward, much like Julie’s would when I fed her, and his thumper feet would pump back and forth with excitement, nearly hitting me on the nose. Between the apple banana goop and the new cotton candy–flavored antibiotic from the compounding pharmacy, Bunny Boy binkied around the house with a lightheartedness I wished I could feel, too.

  But how could I? Without the success of the surgery, our time with Bunny Boy would be short. While my muscle pain had subsided after Bunny Boy’s ordeal, the emotional pain I felt was growing. I refused to speak about it to Ward or the children. We resumed our routine, giving Bunny Boy his penicillin shots and the oral antibiotic and doing hot compresses. This time I used one of my own heat wraps, which fit around his entire jaw, making him look like one of those people wearing a neck brace after a car accident—except for the tall ears!

  I met with Dr. Welch once Bunny Boy was able to eat his pellets again. Bunny Boy was back—which I was able to confirm when he sprayed me! I told her the harrowing details of both surgeries.

  “You said they were unable to remove the abscesses before Bunny Boy went into cardiac arrest, correct?” she said, looking at me quizzically.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  She relit her scope and examined the inside of Bunny Boy’s mouth. Then she palpated both sides of Bunny Boy’s jaw blindly, numerous times.

  “Feel right here, Mrs. Laracy”

  Dr. Welch took my hands and clasped them around Bunny Boy’s jaw. There was just one small band of what felt like tight elastic on the side where he had had his previous surgery. That was all.

  “Both of the abscesses are gone,” she remarked, as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “There’s just scar tissue on the one side.”

  “Are you sure?” I gasped.

  “I’m sure.” She tilted her head, looking up at me with a crooked smile as if to say, “Are you surprised?” I grabbed Bunny Boy off the table and started dancing around the room.

  “It’s a miracle, Dr. Welch.”

  How could the antibiotics alone have gotten rid of the abscesses?

  “Bunny Boy’s one big miracle,” said Dr. Welch. “I won’t question anything when it comes to him.”

  Bunny Boy had pulled
off a hat trick. He had survived cardiac arrest and two abscesses. But I couldn’t help but wonder if his bunny luck was beginning to run out.

  Chapter 28

  Julie was thriving at college. She had made the dean’s list her first semester and joined Phi Sigma Sigma sorority. Greek life, which I knew very little about, involved numerous community projects like working at the food bank nearby and mentoring local high school students, much to my pleasant surprise. I was proud of her. She was following in her grandmother’s footsteps.

  While I had looked forward to having Julie around for the summer, much to our disappointment, she had found herself a job working as a counselor at a sleepaway camp in Pennsylvania. Most of my summer was spent instead at our club pool on a chaise lounge under an umbrella, drafting an outline for my book about Bunny Boy and me, which was beginning to take shape. I had begun expanding my networking and contacts among the national pain community in the past year, including the National Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Association (NFMCPA) and the World Institute of Pain (WIP). The chronic pain and disease community, along with the pet community, was my target audience for the book.

  One day in early August, a jellybean-sized lump next to Bunny Boy’s nose sent us back to visit our friends at the Franklin Lakes Animal Hospital.

  “It’s not much more than a big pimple,” Dr. Welch remarked. She sounded as relieved as I felt. Since we were there, Dr. Welch searched Bunny Boy’s body for possible new abscesses, finding nothing except for some tiny brown specks buried deep in his fur—flea droppings. Half-jokingly, she assumed a look as though she were afraid to tell me the bad news.

  “The pampered prince has fleas, Mrs. Laracy,” she blurted out, covering her mouth to suppress her laughter.

  “Fleas? That’s impossible.” I said as she separated his fur into sections and showed me the droppings.

  “Has Bunny Boy been outside in the grass lately?” she asked.

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I replied. I raised my eyebrows, and my mind wandered to Chris. Though I had only caught him once, I suspected he might have snuck Bunny Boy outside periodically without my knowledge.

  “Have there been any other pets in your home recently?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I repeated.

  I sounded like a politician being interrogated by the Senate committee. “What on earth do I do now?”

  “You’ll need to bomb every room in the house where Bunny Boy spends time with special chemicals. You can buy them at any pet store.”

  Bunny Boy was sitting upright on the table with his ears in their “happy” position, completely oblivious to his critter infestation. “Should I buy one of those flea collars?”

  “Flea collars are too dangerous for rabbits. You’ll have to comb his fur with rubbing alcohol to get rid of the fleas, though I don’t see any at the moment. Good luck catching the fleas, Mrs. Laracy,” she said in jest, handing me a small green comb with metal teeth. “This might be your biggest challenge yet. The comb’s a little present for Bunny Boy.”

  I phoned Ward from the car.

  “Did you say Bunny Boy has fleas?”

  “I did. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “I can’t wait to tell Gregory about this one. So what’s the plan?”

  “I have to bomb the house with chemicals.”

  “With us in it?”

  “I have no idea yet.”

  “Just tell me when it’s safe to come home,” he joked.

  At Scuffy’s, I purchased rubbing alcohol and enough chemicals to clear out any mosquitoes that our Mosquito Magnet missed. I felt a surge of silliness when I told Loretta about the fleas.

  Once home, I set up shop in the green bathroom upstairs. Bunny Boy scratched his ears with his hind paws, and I wondered if he was feeling itchy from the fleas. I separated the first small section of Bunny Boy’s fur, dipped the comb in the bowl of rubbing alcohol, and ran it through slowly. All I found were flea droppings. Stationary brown specks, not moving ones. Bunny Boy sat on my lap contently, probably thinking it was just another type of spa treatment.

  I dipped and combed, dipped and combed. But there were still no fleas. By the seventh sequence, Bunny Boy and I were both getting impatient. He kept trying to knock away the comb and lick his fur at the same time, which made my job harder. I cursed under my breath.

  “How’s it going in there?” asked Chris, peeking into the bathroom. “You sound a little frustrated, Mom!”

  “I haven’t spotted a single flea,” I replied, exasperated. “Just their droppings.”

  “If anyone can catch and eradicate them, it’s you, Nancinator. Just keep your cool.”

  I was particularly fond of the nickname. It was about as endearing as I could expect from my teenage male offspring.

  “Want to give me a hand?” I asked with a pitiful look on my face.

  “Hey Jules, we could use some help in the green bathroom,” he yelled downstairs. Although she had been away for most of the summer, Julie had returned and would be staying with us for six weeks before her next semester started. The three of us launched a full-scale invasion of Bunny Boy’s fur. He fought us like a boxer in training, swinging at us with his front paws. Eventually, we turned up one lone flea. I whisked the comb under the tiny critter and flushed him down the toilet.

  I bombed the house the next morning and we spent the day at my mother’s. Her poor cats were locked behind a gate upstairs while the prince had full run of her house.

  Chris never owned up to bringing Bunny Boy outside. But I knew better.

  I was the next to turn fifty soon. I felt optimistic and happy. Life was good. My health was stable for the time being, my children were flourishing, and Bunny Boy had filled the void I had felt over not having a third child. He completed our family.

  Six weeks before my milestone birthday, Ward and I were hanging out in the sunroom with our best friends. We would be having dinner at a Caribbean restaurant later that evening and were pregaming on margaritas with cute umbrellas in them and fresh fruit stuffed in a hollowed-out pineapple. Bunny Boy hopped onto my lap, a pink umbrella in his teeth, just as music came blaring through the speakers behind the bar—“Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett.

  “Surprise!” everyone announced. “We’re going to St. Thomas next week!”

  I was completely surprised—and ecstatic.

  Ward had arranged everything. My brother, Jack, would keep an eye on Chris, and Kelly would visit with penicillin injections for Bunny Boy every other day. He would be on the shots for the remainder of his life.

  We spent our time in St. Thomas decompressing, as I liked to call it—soaking up the sun at the pool and the beach and simply relaxing. I called home every day to check on Bunny Boy and Chris. On the fourth day, we sailed for eight hours through the crystal-clear blue waters of the Caribbean while steel drum music played softly in the background. Our first stop was St. John, where we snorkeled in a scenic cove along Honeymoon Beach. Next, we sailed to Virgin Gorda and disembarked for an hour to shop at the small stores along the pier. When we reboarded, the captain took us to Jost Van Dyke, where we paddled our way to shore on Styrofoam floats and enjoyed drinks at the famous Soggy Dollar Bar. Except for a few drops of rain on the first day and a delayed flight during the tail end of our trip, our island getaway was magical.

  Around this time, Bunny Boy had also turned eight years old. It was an important birthday for our lagomorph. He had lived to his full life expectancy—seven to eight years. We made a bigger fuss than normal. I baked a bunny cake and filled a dozen mini bunny molds, which were sitting in a tray, with timothy hay pellets. Bunny Boy flipped the tray over almost immediately. It was the thought that counted.

  A few days after his birthday, I was invited to a “Girls’ Night Out” at a local Italian Restaurant, which ended up being another surprise party for me. There wasn’t a single detail my devoted girlfriends had overlooked. There were lavender and pink flowers in black glass cubes on the tables, a lu
scious buffet of Italian specialties, a hysterical roasting of the guest of honor, and a massive collage with embarrassing photos of my entire life on display. Out of the fifty-plus photos of my family and me, Bunny Boy was in at least a dozen. It was special night I would never forget.

  I barely had time to send out thank you cards before our Christmas party approached. I could not help but continue to be in the most festive of moods, considering all the celebrating that had taken place. Bunny Boy was the pampered prince, and I truly felt like his pampered princess. During the party, Bunny Boy wore his Santa hat and I donned a tiara with gold stones that read “Fifty.” I wasn’t sure I was deserving of so much love and attention.

  As the icing on the cake, my baby brother, Tom, and his family arrived from Colorado in time to celebrate Christmas. It was the only gift I had asked for.

  While I caught up with my sister-in-law, Audrey, and the boys, Tom wasted no time rekindling his relationship with Bunny Boy, lying on the rug face to face with our bunny and talking to him softly.

  “I gotta tell you, you’re really something else, Bunny Boy,” he’d say. “I would have never thought a rabbit could bring such love to a house like you do. Your mother’s crazy about you.” With his loving, affectionate nature and stoicism in the face of adversity, Bunny Boy had won the hearts and respect of my entire family. For the first time in fifteen years, the entire Buchalski family rocked under one roof on Christmas Eve in a boisterous, emotion-filled celebration of twenty-four close relatives. My mother was beaming. There was nothing that meant more to her than her family—just as it did to me.

  Fifty, for me, was a wonderful place to be.

  Chapter 29

  In a few months, I had gone from being on top of the world to teetering on the edge of exhaustion. My mother was having a myriad of medical problems that required my attention, which I gladly gave her. Chris and I were arguing regularly over how much time was appropriate to spend on homework versus electronic games. He seemed to think that, once he hit six feet tall, I couldn’t tell him what to do. Often, he would sit on the couch with Bunny Boy and play Halo or World of Warcraft until he developed calluses on his fingers. On top of being the auction committee chairman for a large charity event for pediatric cancer, which required me calling in favors from anyone unlucky enough to have crossed my path—often from my bed or the sofa because the pain and malaise had become debilitating again—I was also working with a few new fibromyalgia patients who had been referred to me. Soon, I was beginning to feel that the load on my back was too heavy. When Bunny Boy’s facial abscess came back, this time much larger than before, despite his prophylactic penicillin injections, I felt ready to burst.