Derby had surgery last week. It was pretty traumatic all around. I’m [Carly] not a big believer in expensive, painful procedures on pets. It’s not fair to them or us. How do you explain what’s happening to a pet? But after talking to the Bunny Doc, Art and I decided that we should go ahead with Derby’s surgery. The choice really was that or put him to sleep in the very near future. The surgery seemed relatively simple, and the vet thought he’d easily have another 3-5 years of very high quality life after. Considering the recovery time was really only about 2 weeks at the most — it seemed like a natural choice.

Well, Derby decided to complicate things. The bladder stone, which they double checked just before the x-ray, disappeared when they opened him up. They had to do a mid-surgery x-ray to find the damn thing.

Somehow, it had shrunk just enough to escape into his urethra. According to the Bunny Docs — this just doesn’t happen. They had to perform a rare “marsupialization” procedure, which you really don’t want me to explain. Needless to say this rather complicated his surgery and made everyone nervous about the outcome.

After 2 days at the Vet, Derby came home. You’d barely know he’d had surgery. Art is having to give him several types of drugs every day, and we’re still trying to get some “critical care” into him because he lost a lot of weight in the days before his surgery. But, his appetite is rapidly returning and so far, things are going really well.

That’s good. I’d really disapprove of losing Derby just yet.