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On the morning of 9/13, we took Mango to UW-vet for blood test. We have been suspecting he may have teeth problem. We did detailed scope check of his teeth under mild anesthesia, meanwhile, took his blood sample.
In the afternoon, doctor found a small crack on one of his back molar. Near by the molar, she fond a small inflammation too. She prescribed Meloxicam as pain relief, and switched albendazole to oxibendazole as we asked before.
After he got Meloxicam, he started eating vegetables. We noticed his speed of eating is quite slow.
It was due to much serious problem than the teeth crack, but we never imagine about it.
On the next morning, 9/14, I got a call from vet that informed us Mango’s severe anemia.
His PCV value dropped to 13%. Just a week ago, on 9/5, it was 22%.
And this time, not only red blood cell count but also white blood cell count and platelets count were drastically decreasing.
Blood cells ware forming clusters, which was not observed on 9/5.
Also, there was no immature cell in his blood, even his PCV dropped suddenly to this dangerous level.
Doctor suspected bone marrow decease with auto immune disorder, which we excluded just one week ago.
The change was too sudden to explain otherwise auto immune disorder or toxic.
We took his bone marrow for pathological analysis.
The result showed desperately small number of mother stem cell.
His mother stem cell had gone, instead, his bone marrow was filled with fat.
It was aplastic anemia, which is quite rare for a rabbit.
Since Mango was HRS rescued rabbit, the director of Wisconsin HRS tried to search for a case of aplastic anemia in all US HRS network, but he couldn’t find even a single case.
On the afternoon of 9/14, Mango started to bleed from his nose.
We had to make a decision for next step.
Since Mango was still cheerful and trying to recover, we decided to do blood transfusion from other HRS bunny Angel.
On evening of 9/14, we put IV catheter on Mango’s foot and start to give medicine for immune-suppression.
We took 60ml of Angel’s blood and transfused it to Mango until midnight.
After that, we noticed Angel’s PCV was also 29% (before transfusion), which shows mild anemia too.
We also took other two rabbit’s blood sample (for Petit and Rufus), in order to check their blood count.
At that time, Petit and Rufus’s PCV was middle of normal range, but one week later, Rufus’s PCV dropped 8% from that day.
Doctor seriously suspected that our house may have toxic materials.
We doubted carpet cleaner solution (that was for “pet odor”) we sprayed almost three weeks ago, but from the ingredient list the company gave us and Material Safety Data Sheet(MSDS), we couldn’t find any toxic ingredient which causes aplastic anemia.
Mango was in vet for next two days. On the third day morning, his leg with IV catheter got inflammation and his favor was rising up.
They suspected infection from IV catheter and removed it.
Now we had to switch oral medication for immune-suppression.
We took Mango to home, and gave flesh vegetables. He ate a lot!
Carrot top — for two carrots,
Basil leaves — 2 stems
Celery 1/2 stem
Pellets 2 tsp.
He also ate hay, which he didn’t like before.
I applied “Chi” power to him. After a while, his intestine start to move very actively. I have never seen any of our rabbit’s intestine is moving so fast, with large movements.
His favor and cool down in short period like one hour.
Then he took relax posture as he is in safe home.
On midnight of 10/18, he ate basil’s stem.
He also ate two dandelion leaves quickly.
After that, he jumped into his litterbox — then suddenly, he started bleeding from his nose again.
I couldn’t understand what was going on, Mango was sniffing again and again, and I saw something red was hanging down from his nose holes.
I let my room mate wake up and we caught him to check his nose. He couldn’t take his breath because his nose hole was clogged with red rubber-like material. We doubted the material is platelets.
When a human got bleeding from nose, shocking heels works quite well to stop it.
(Usually we hit our heels on a hard wall with our back faced on the wall)
We tried to shock Mango’s heels, and it seems like working even for a rabbit.
His blood stopped, but then his nose holes was filled with the rubber-like platelets.
He started to breath with his mouth. It looked so difficult for him, and I was afraid that the blood may run into his throat and make his throat clog again.
We decided to suck out his platelets from his nose with my mouth.
Eventually, that might triggered his pneumonia, since he didn’t have enough white cell.
I have never tasted rabbit’s blood, but the taste was quite thin.
At 4 AM, his nose hall was finally cleared out and he start to breath normally.
He lost so much power during the night and couldn’t eat anything.
He tried to eat his most favorite banana, but he couldn’t manducate it anymore.
On the afternoon, we noticed his nose is bleeding slightly again.
He could drink water with a small syringe.
On 9/19, we noticed his breath was making strange noise.
It was Saturday and our doctor was not on call shift.
The director of WHRS suspected that Mango’s lung have water due to high favor, and may be we have to make up our mind.
We made his posture inclined in order to reduce the strange noise.
It is the last picture of Mango.
On Sunday morning, 9/20, we took Mango to UW-vet again.
We asked hospice care for Mango, but since it was Sunday we couldn’t find any company that rent a oxygen chamber for him.
Mango was given sedation and looked very calm.
Since we couldn’t get oxygen chamber, we finally decided to euthanize him.
Just after the decision, his body tilted slowly and his breath get larger.
Before we give anesthesia to him, Mango stopped his breath.
Doctor gave a shot and his heart stopped soon.
Mango’s body was donated for necropsy.
We found liver lobe torsion that result in necrosis in the affected lobe.
We don’t know why it happened and why we didn’t find the problem with both x-ray and ultra-sound.
Liver lobe torsion in rabbit may cause anemia but not aplastic anemia.
See this file for detailed report.
Platelets extracted from Mango’s nose
Last drops
