Conviction

Sometimes, when school gets really stressful and I'm about two inches away from throwing in the towel, shit goes down in such a way that it renews my conviction like a born-again Christian. About wanting to be a vet. In an "I'm really happy about the course of things right now even though I'm staring down three exams that I'm inevitably going to beat myself up over" sort of way. It's really not a huge deal, especially since rabbits aren't really the critters that I want to work with, but it still feels good to know that I succeeded when I was basically being told "no u".

Friday night, somewhere between washing, worming, immunizing and dying orange this litter of 5 flea-infested kittens, I walked out of kennel for a breather. As I passed Titus' cage, this guy and his little daughter walk up to me with a white baby bunny. He says "I dunno what's wrong with it, but it's not been doing well. We just bought it yesterday and, well I think it's got a broken back or something." And he passes this limp, barely alive critter off to me after I assure him that we'll honor the warranty and he and his daughter can pick out a new one while I set this one up in the back to be monitored specially. A broken back? No dude, this rabbit's not been eating and it's totally stressed out. Whoever sold you this animal better have explained to you and yours that a baby bunny needs time to itself, on the order of several hours at a time, in a quiet area of the house with a stable temperature. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't mentioned to him. He said there was no rough handling when I asked, so how could it have broken its back? The girl who was on register that night told me I was wasting my time since it was just going to die anyway.

Anyway, I was told to put it not in fish back room, but in a kennel with a towel so that it wouldn't be forgotten about (fish guys, *eyeroll*). And I set out to put this bunny on a regiment that would hopefully give it enough energy to move around enough to feed itself. The rest of that night, I gave it a little bit of karo syrup and water every hour and chalked it up to a success if it was still breathing in the morning. So Saturday morning I walk in at 9 AM and find that my little rescue mission was successful by current parameters. Barely. Well, sugar is a good jump start and rehydrating is always important, but to do work (like breathing and pumping blood) the body needs calories. Glucose will get you part of the way, but it can't do it alone. So there's this product called Nutri-Cal, which is basically calories in a tube. How convenient.

Since the rabbit was barely hanging on at this point, I figured I couldn't do much harm by giving it a little Nutri-Cal with the karo and water. And while we're at it, let's throw in this vitamin water additive. I get a little inventive when I'm mixing things up for shortcuts and ease of use, especially when I know it's for a job I'll have to pass off to somebody else (I generally don't trust people to do a job right, with a few exceptions being the kennel manager and my boyfriend. No offense to everybody else. So if I can make it easier on someone else, I feel like I can eliminate the chances of them deciding not to do it, or just plain doing it wrong). So I mixed up a batch of karo water with vitamins. And I put enough nutri-cal in syringes to get the bunny through the day (assuming it survived), even after I would leave at 3. And I crossed my fingers. After the first dose, it perked up a bit, but still wouldn't move except as much as it took to lay down from the way I propped it up. Flatline in improvement from there until around 1. After that dose, it wobbled back and forth a little without standing up, at least putting in an effort to support itself.

I can't say how well it was handled after I left, or whether what I attempted was all that helpful, but it was great to learn via text that as of Monday afternoon, the bunny was eating hay on its own. A small victory, but a victory no less. With midterms tearing at my mental state, I'll take what I can get.

This is why I want to be a vet. Sure, every day won't be an episode of House. I know that I won't even be able to walk away from every work day and call it a success. I'll still have to deal with dumb people and dumb situations. And I know there will be times when I'm not able to do anything helpful. But I'd rather do anything it takes to help an animal than do anything at all to help an average human (obvious exceptions for particular individuals and children).