Really awful news :'(
So. Went to the vet's with Lahi today to check if his conjunctivitus was healed. I'd run out of eyedrops, and though his eye isn't totally back to normal I wanted to know if it would be healing on its own if the conjunctivitus was gone.
The good news: the conjunctivitus is gone.
The bad news: his eye isn't back to normal. It's protruding slightly. Which means there's something behind it, pushing it forward.
The likely candidates for that "something" are either a tumour or an abscess. The conjunctivitus was likely a symptom of the underlying problem, not a isolated event.
In the case of a tumour, it's in a spot hard to operate on, and will only get worse with time. A risky surgery is neccessary to completely remove it, after which the problem is probably solved.
In the case of an abscess... Well, as it turns out, abscesses in rabbits are different from any other animal. My sister's horse gets abscesses in his feet and legs all the time. Fun pus and liquid and her wrangling me into wrapping his feet with baby diapers filled with epson salts ensues. Basically, most animals you drain the liquid and you're good.
Rabbits need them entirely removed. Surgically. Which still pretty simple, if it's in the skin.
Lahi's (potential) abscess is behind his eye. Not so simple. In fact the book the vet consulted outright said that treatment in such cases is extremely difficult.
Unlike tumours, they're very unpredictable. They can grow extremely rapidly, and the vet told me once that she saw overnight one turn into five.
Like tumours, they just get worse with time. They don't solve themselves.
If surgery is determined to be impossible, then usually antibiotics are injected regularly for the rest of the rabbit's life. If the surgery
does proceed, abscesses also don't tend to stay gone, so they'd
still be taking antibiotics (possibly injections) the rest of their life.
And due to the fact that Lahi's eye was not protruding when I first noticed the conjunctivitus 4 weeks ago, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't protruding much 3 weeks ago, this has developed very rapidly and is therefore probably an abscess.
And to really put icing on the cake? Abscesses can be caused by a number of things, like inflammation, or being jabbed by something... but with rabbits (lucky me) they apparently usually result from the bacteria that will sometimes reside in their bodies.
Which means it's
contagious.
Which means
DELILAH probably already has it. She's not guaranteed to get an abscess from it, but if Lahi's was caused by bacteria, then Delilah has that same bacteria.
Now. What to DO about it.
Did I mention Lahi is 7 years old? Anaesthetic not recommended in rabbits over age 4.
I went into the vet's to make sure Lahi's eye was all better.
I came out with a tentative diagnosis of something WORSE than a brain tumour.
I now have to choose between putting my elderly rabbit through a risky surgery on a difficult area with an expensive specialist, AFTER a round of x-rays, MRIs, and possibly ultrasounds to FIND it, and being on antibiotics for the rest of his life...
:dunno:
Or to try to make the remainder of his life as comfortable as possible. Which based on the rapid onset, could be the remainder of the month.
:cry1:
The attached pictures are various angles (side, front, back) of his eyes (left, protruding eye, then right, healthy eye) with a final shot of his whole face from the front to show the difference at once. It's not that noticeable when looking at him from the side--all you notice is his third eyelid. But from the back it's really noticeable. He wasn't scared, the whites of his eye shouldn't have been showing (as seen by his right eye).
. Distraction can be an amazingly good tool!
