notes.husk.org/likes images.

One year ago exactly, Erika sent me a grainy photo of a tribble.

The 4 inch ball of fluff in the picture turned out to be a baby rabbit. Someone had dumped him in a box outside her workplace and left him there overnight. In 10-degree-Fahrenheit cold.

And that’s how we adopted Sherlock.

He took over the house immediately. You sat down on the couch? Obviously your lap must be occupied by bunny.

Oh, you put out high-protein, entirely-meat-based cat food for the 18-pound Maine Coon? The feline peasant will stand aside while Sherlock gorges himself on delicious meat.

(What do you mean, Lagomorpha is an herbivorous species? What does that have to do with me and why have you put MY cat food behind a gate?)

Due to the pneumonia he had when we got him, he’s always been prone to sinus infections. I think that’s why he developed an abcess behind his left eye in early August.

One morning, he didn’t come out of Fluffton Abbey (his multi-level cardboard bunny palace in the middle of the living room and are you getting why I said he owns the place?). Erika pulled him out, and yelled for me. Because his eye and a huge mass of red tissue were pushing out of the socket.

Weeks of antibiotics and drugs followed. Nothing got better. The three-times-daily ritual of drug application became grim.

After a while, when someone you love is sick, you get this feeling. Like hope has become a hard dry thing you bite down on, to brace against fear.

And then one morning, the abcess drained. It was working!

Nasty yellowish pus oozed out from around his eye. It had to be cleaned away many times daily, but that was natural: the abcess was responding to treatment. We’d saved his eye.

Weeks passed, and we continued to give compresses and clean the pus. It got into his long, fine fur and had to be soaked and brushed out.

Sherlock’s personality remained untouched by the constant discomfort: he continued to follow us around, climb in our laps, soak up affection, and try to make friends with the cat.

Months passed. It didn’t get worse. It didn’t get better. His skin was irritated. He hated us cleaning his fur. His paws were getting matted with it, and we had to clean those too.

We brought him to the vet, had the oozing discharge cultured. Nothing grew: the stuff was sterile. Antibiotic eye drops were keeping infection away but weren’t fixing the problem.

One night, we were sitting on the floor in the living room. I called him by name and he ran over to me at top speed, as usual. And crashed head-first into my foot. Then reeled back and cocked his head around to look with his other eye and figure out what the hell kind of invisible force field had got in his way.

He was completely blind in the bad eye. It was going to have to come out.

Last Thursday, he had the surgery, and came home with one good eye, and one pink, shaved patch of skin.

One pink, clean patch of skin. No more weeping pus.

We were sad but relieved. He seemed fine.

The picture above is of him when we brought him home: being spoiled and fussed over.

Thursday night, I went downstairs for a final pre-bed check. His face was covered in a the same yellowish discharge. It was coming out from the sutures holding his eye closed. There was a rancid smell, like yeast and rotten Parmesan cheese. And it just kept oozing.

The vet ER had a rabbit doctor on duty. She cleaned him up and gave him pain meds. Packed the eye full of sugar-soaked gauze to try and dry it up.

And yesterday we brought him back to our vet.

He’s still there: they kept him for the weekend. There’s some kind of sterile abcess in his sinuses, and they’re trying to draw it out. “We’re treating his eye socket like it was an open wound,” said the doctor today. “The sugar pack seems to work to clean and pull the stuff out, so we’re going to just pack, draw, clean, and re-pack all weekend.”

What breaks my heart is, even though strangers are stuffing things in and out of a barely-healed empty eye socket, his personality is unchanged. He’s nudging the vet with his nose for petting, eating normally, and being fussed over and petted.

Everyone who meets him is delighted. He charms and brings happiness to everyone he meets. (Except the cat.)

I want him back and well and happy. I want to be annoyed when he refuses to eat celery. I want him to fall asleep on my shoulder while we watch a movie.

I’m making myself feel the pain of loss now. I’m wondering if I’d be able to get another rabbit if the worst happened. I’m biting down on hope.

I don’t know what’s going to happen.