Ethel’s last day

– Care summary report and Prescription (pdf)
On 4:30 AM Sep. 8 2010, Ethel showed an acute head tilt. She couldn’t stop rolling herself .

At 5:30 AM, we took Ethel to an emergency vet clinic (“Exceptional Care for Animals” 229 W. Beltline Highway, Madison WI 53713) and left her for medication.
At 10:00 PM, we decided to give medicare and syringe feeding by ourselves and bring her back to home. Ethel was showing basically same symptom as 18 hours before, though she was much calmed down than morning.
We Fed her 10ml critical care and 10ml water + gaterade.
At 12:00 AM, Sep. 9 2010, she showed twitch movement. The frequency of twitching was increasing as time goes. Direction of twitch movement was opposite (left) of head tilt (right).
The drift speed of eyes looked still slower than morning.
I realized that I forgot to feed Dimenhydrinate (medicine for motion sickness) on 10PM, then I gave it with 2ml water with two hours delay. The twitch movement didn’t gone.
The following video shows her twitch movement.
She had severe head tilt towards right, but occasionally, she twitched to left.

At 2:00 AM, She lost appetite and couldn’t eat critical care. Since she ate plenty on the last feeding, we thought she is not hungry yet.
She had not pass urine and evacuate feces from she came back to home. We tried massage to make her intestine move.
At 3:00 AM, I found the powder of Dimenhydrinate was still remaining on the wall of injection syringe. With 2ml of orange juice (which was her favorite drink) I dissolved the powder and gave it to Ethel.
At 4:00 AM, her twitch movement was slightly calmed down.
5:20 AM, suddenly Petit (Ethel’s daughter) rushed up to her cage.
Ethel was frightened by the noise Petit made, started to kick her legs as she was in panic. It looked like convulsions.
5:30 AM, before we call to vet, she started to breath heavily and she cried a few times, then she stopped her breath.
I think our treatment was as fast as possible. She took medication just 1 hour after she showed the symptom.
We regret that still we couldn’t help her.
May be it was critical to give her motion sickness drag on time (I delayed two hours).
We should have removed any possibility that may frighten our weakened Ethel.
She was changing her fur. The amount of fur she lost was relatively larger than usual, and I’m not sure it was natural or one of the indication that she was infected bacteria and loosing her physical strength.
May be we should have checked her weight more frequently, and be more careful about nutrition balance.
On the other hand, thinking about her age 7 years and 9 month old, I believe Ethel enjoyed her life. She was eating pellet well, jumping and running on carpet with her friend Mango until just one day before her death.
If I’m an old woman around 70 years old, I might envy Ethel’s life.
I also imagine the reason why Petit dashed into her cage. She was frightened by something which we couldn’t notice.
It could be her partner Rufus, a young black bunny, but recently they are doing very well and Petit was not frightened by Rufus as much as she was.
So I believe — it’s just my hope — that it was the spirit of Aiolos who loved Ethel so much and made many babies with her, passed away 3 years before.
His daughter Petit was frightened, but I hope Ethel chose to go to heaven with Aiolos, instead of suffering from long illness and medicare.
Ethel lived with us for 7 years. When I found her, she was in a small cage and waiting for adoption at a corner of a rabbit shop. She was a neglected bunny, very thin and had broke her left leg with her weight because she couldn’t get out from the small cage. I couldn’t stop gazing her, since she was so beautiful and had noble atmosphere. After we lost our first baby gray bunny with diarrhea due to our ignorance, we were looking for her reincarnation — and the thin bunny looked like our first bunny very much.
We adopted her and gave her the same name as our first bunny.
After 7 years have passed, we know she is not a substitution of the baby gray Ethel anymore.
She enjoyed her own life with first Ethel’s soul.
The first baby Ethel left from us only 3 days after we met — but I believe her soul lived with our darling second Ethel, and completed her long life.
I read a poem “Rainbow Bridge” sometime — especially when I lost my bunny.
It’s a beautiful poem, even though, as a Japanese grown up under buddhism, I feel like the Rainbow Bridge connects one life to another life, instead of bridging our life to heaven.
I might not know the second Ethel if I didn’t lose the first Ethel. I wouldn’t adopt Mango from WHRS if I didn’t loose Aiolos.
All my memories connect these darling lives — we Japanese call it “Enishi (縁)” and I couldn’t find best translation in English — that’s why, I believe the Rainbow Bridge is my memory towards everyone I love .
Someday, I myself will be a piece of memory of someone, and connect other lives with a Rainbow Bridge.
Now I feel we can stop to seek first Ethel’s soul, peacefully.
We have so many memories with Ethel. Thank you for enjoying your life with us, Ethel!




At 5:30 AM, we took Ethel to an emergency vet clinic (“Exceptional Care for Animals” 229 W. Beltline Highway, Madison WI 53713) and left her for medication.
At 10:00 PM, we decided to give medicare and syringe feeding by ourselves and bring her back to home. Ethel was showing basically same symptom as 18 hours before, though she was much calmed down than morning.
We Fed her 10ml critical care and 10ml water + gaterade.
At 12:00 AM, Sep. 9 2010, she showed twitch movement. The frequency of twitching was increasing as time goes. Direction of twitch movement was opposite (left) of head tilt (right).
The drift speed of eyes looked still slower than morning.
I realized that I forgot to feed Dimenhydrinate (medicine for motion sickness) on 10PM, then I gave it with 2ml water with two hours delay. The twitch movement didn’t gone.
The following video shows her twitch movement.
She had severe head tilt towards right, but occasionally, she twitched to left.

At 2:00 AM, She lost appetite and couldn’t eat critical care. Since she ate plenty on the last feeding, we thought she is not hungry yet.
She had not pass urine and evacuate feces from she came back to home. We tried massage to make her intestine move.
At 3:00 AM, I found the powder of Dimenhydrinate was still remaining on the wall of injection syringe. With 2ml of orange juice (which was her favorite drink) I dissolved the powder and gave it to Ethel.
At 4:00 AM, her twitch movement was slightly calmed down.
5:20 AM, suddenly Petit (Ethel’s daughter) rushed up to her cage.
Ethel was frightened by the noise Petit made, started to kick her legs as she was in panic. It looked like convulsions.
5:30 AM, before we call to vet, she started to breath heavily and she cried a few times, then she stopped her breath.
I think our treatment was as fast as possible. She took medication just 1 hour after she showed the symptom.
We regret that still we couldn’t help her.
May be it was critical to give her motion sickness drag on time (I delayed two hours).
We should have removed any possibility that may frighten our weakened Ethel.
She was changing her fur. The amount of fur she lost was relatively larger than usual, and I’m not sure it was natural or one of the indication that she was infected bacteria and loosing her physical strength.
May be we should have checked her weight more frequently, and be more careful about nutrition balance.
On the other hand, thinking about her age 7 years and 9 month old, I believe Ethel enjoyed her life. She was eating pellet well, jumping and running on carpet with her friend Mango until just one day before her death.
If I’m an old woman around 70 years old, I might envy Ethel’s life.
I also imagine the reason why Petit dashed into her cage. She was frightened by something which we couldn’t notice.
It could be her partner Rufus, a young black bunny, but recently they are doing very well and Petit was not frightened by Rufus as much as she was.
So I believe — it’s just my hope — that it was the spirit of Aiolos who loved Ethel so much and made many babies with her, passed away 3 years before.
His daughter Petit was frightened, but I hope Ethel chose to go to heaven with Aiolos, instead of suffering from long illness and medicare.
Ethel lived with us for 7 years. When I found her, she was in a small cage and waiting for adoption at a corner of a rabbit shop. She was a neglected bunny, very thin and had broke her left leg with her weight because she couldn’t get out from the small cage. I couldn’t stop gazing her, since she was so beautiful and had noble atmosphere. After we lost our first baby gray bunny with diarrhea due to our ignorance, we were looking for her reincarnation — and the thin bunny looked like our first bunny very much.
We adopted her and gave her the same name as our first bunny.
After 7 years have passed, we know she is not a substitution of the baby gray Ethel anymore.
She enjoyed her own life with first Ethel’s soul.
The first baby Ethel left from us only 3 days after we met — but I believe her soul lived with our darling second Ethel, and completed her long life.
I read a poem “Rainbow Bridge” sometime — especially when I lost my bunny.
It’s a beautiful poem, even though, as a Japanese grown up under buddhism, I feel like the Rainbow Bridge connects one life to another life, instead of bridging our life to heaven.
I might not know the second Ethel if I didn’t lose the first Ethel. I wouldn’t adopt Mango from WHRS if I didn’t loose Aiolos.
All my memories connect these darling lives — we Japanese call it “Enishi (縁)” and I couldn’t find best translation in English — that’s why, I believe the Rainbow Bridge is my memory towards everyone I love .
Someday, I myself will be a piece of memory of someone, and connect other lives with a Rainbow Bridge.
Now I feel we can stop to seek first Ethel’s soul, peacefully.
We have so many memories with Ethel. Thank you for enjoying your life with us, Ethel!