Help Me Save Spud ❤️

Hi everyone,

I haven’t had the chance yet to formally introduce myself to you, but my name is Catherine and I’m the owner (servant) of Spud the Lop

If you’ve been keeping up with our Instagram Stories, you know Spud needs an emergency surgery for a liver lobe torsion that has caused GI Stasis (read further to learn about this). Without the surgery he will die.

I’vs created this Go Fund Me because several others have suggested it and said they’d like to help. So far I’m looking at $5000 of expenses.

Any amount helps. Even a $2 donation, the price of a cup of coffee, goes a long way, and I want to thank you so much for that generosity ❤️

The Journey So Far:

Living in a rural and remote community, my options for a 24hr vet clinic were extremely limited, nevermind a rabbit savvy vet clinic.

I paid to have a vet assess him virtually at night (since they don’t do in person triage), and then spent the night awake doing everything recommended to remedy the stasis.

The next morning I drove 2hrs to that clinic for a different vet - somewhat experienced with rabbits - to help him. He was given fluids, pain meds, critical care, heat, and an X-Ray was done. His stomach is distended.

That vet called a different rabbit savvy vet for consultation. Since this clinic closes at night without overnight care, the plan was made for Spud to be transferred to the rabbit savvy vet, who operated out of a clinic 5 hours away.

Since this rabbit savvy vet clinic also doesn’t operate overnight, the plan was to bring him to a 24hr emergency animal clinic nearby that they regularly dealt with an had a lot of experience with rabbits in GI Stasis. This way he’d get constant overnight care.

Then the next morning I would bring him to the rabbit savvy vet from the 24hr clinic.

He is there now, getting another X-Ray and blood work done to see if his organs are working well and if there’s any toxins in his blood from bacteria die off (read more on this below).

The goal is to determine the underlying cause of the GI Stasis so it’s remedied and so this doesn’t happen again.

He may have a functional blockage (caused by the GI Tract not wanting to push things along normally). Or he may have a non-functional blockage such as a dried hair ball.

Either way, the first step is to hydrate him a lot and keep him comfortable with pain meds to loosen up the gut contents and promote motility.

We’re trying to avoid surgery as much as possible since rabbits do poorly with anesthesia and even more poorly with GI surgery.

I’m doing everything I can to save him - sleepless nights, long drives, staying in airbnbs since it’s so far away, paying for everything they suggest to assess and help him, and risking losing my job.

I can live with all of that. But I can’t live without Spud.

Thank you again for your kindness and support. It means more to me than you know ❤️

GI STASIS:

GI Stasis is a symptom bunnies can get when they are stressed or in pain. Because of an underlying condition that they can no longer hide or tolerate, their GI tract will stop moving properly. They will stop eating and drinking. And this dehydration will make their body pull water from their gut, which then makes their intestinal contents even drier and harder to move. It’s a really tricky negative feedback loop. More pain means less eating and drinking, which means less gut motility, which means dehydration, which means water is pulled out of the internet tract, which means harder gut contents, which means more pain and repeat.

Additionally, if contents are not being passed from their cecum and colon, the bacteria in there will die off. These Bactria release toxins when they die off and can cause more problems and more pain.