I adopted Milo from the RSPCA back in January and they told me that when she was born she was born with a heart murmur, but it was not a big deal and didn’t really go into it much further. We bought her to try and bond with my other bun as I was worried that she was lonely and have always been told that rabbits shouldn’t be on their own as they’re social creatures. However my other rabbit was not happy and I was finding it really difficult to bond them. I fell in love with Milo from the moment we met her and brought her home. So I decided that no matter what I would make things work, even if they needed to live separately and couldn’t be bonded. Milo had already been adopted once before and returned, so I wanted to make sure that we kept her and made her feel loved. She was honestly the sweetest bun and she was so gentle, she had the best personality. I remember just looking at her and thinking how could someone give her up because she was so sweet and beautiful.
Then yesterday morning I woke up to her acting different and not wanting to eat her breakfast and noticed her breathing was rapid. I figured she was experiencing GI stasis so took her to the vet straight away (made sure to go the vet we see for our other bun, who has experience with rabbits). They ended up telling me that she was experiencing bloat which was worst than just GI stasis and that because of her heart murmur, she most likely wouldn’t make it through the treatment as it would put too much stress on her heart. In the end we made the decision to put her to sleep. It has really affected me and I feel so horrible that we adopted her and then ended up putting her to sleep because I wanted her to finally have her forever home and wanted to make sure she felt love but instead this happened and we only had her for such a short amount of time before losing her. I feel really guilty about it and feel like we should have at least tried the treat her but the vet said that it would likely happen again in the future if she made it through the treatment and that she would need to extensive treatment with her heart condition. I know that the RSPCA most likely just wanted her to be adopted out but I can’t help but feel like I wasn’t warned about how complicated her heart condition and what that meant with how she would need extensive care.
I feel so heartbroken over it and just keep thinking about how she would have felt and just hope that she knows that we did love her even though she was only with us for a such a short time. I’ve just been so upset since it happened, to the point where I cried that much yesterday I gave myself the worst tension headache and felt like vomiting. I think people must think that I’m being dramatic because we didn’t have her for that long but it has really impacted me and I can’t stop thinking about the what ifs and what I should have done differently. I don’t think I will ever try and get another rabbit for my other bun because I don’t want to lose another bun and know that at some point I’m going to have to go through losing my other bun at some point, which I know it going to be really hard. Sorry for the long post I think I just need to let it out as it has really impacted me 😞 thank you for reading my post if you have made it this far.
by Wide_Assignment_8843