Pancakes

Pancakes Status March 11th, 2010
It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that Pancakes passed away in the early hours of the morning on March 9th. Over the four days prior to his passing, his teeth problems were getting worse and he was slowly beginning to crash again. We didn't want to go through the same scare as last time so we had him hospitalized on Monday the 8th. He was hooked up with IV and several drugs to help him get better. The doctor made frequent trips throughout the night. Pancakes seemed ok during the checks...but somewhere between 4 am and 7 am, Pancakes slipped out of this life. Right now, we are very devestated (so much in fact that it took 2 days to update his website on his passing).
Just know that he did not pass away from lack of options. This fundraiser was very successful. We raised over $1000 for Pancakes. His medical bills over the last six weeks were also over $1000. We are tallying the results and there is probably going to be some money left over. A few of you suggested that we use the money on something for us to help us feel better. We plan to do just that. Our hope is to arrange with the clinic that we make a special card with Pancakes story on it...and that the next time a bunny comes in who can really use the help, I would like the doctor to give them the card which will have a contribution made towards their bunny bill. They will receive this as a surprise from a bunny that fought so hard...so very very hard. And now he will keep fighting to help save other bunnies who are having troule being saved simply because of finances.

As for Pancakes website, for now, it will be left as it is (though changing the donation page so people understand that they are NOT donating to help Pancakes himself but to help other bunnies that need it) and meanwhile, i will be working on a new, longer-lasting, easier to maintain, website to help turn Pancakes fight into a fundraising site for other bunnies. We will keep you up-to-date on how we intend to fundraise and spend the money but we need to plan things out first, and it will take a small bit of time because we would also just like to have a day or two to rest from the 6 weeks of intensive love and care for Pancakes and just relish in the memories he gave us. There will be more to come so don't delete this site from your favourites list just yet.
Thank you so much for your support. Pancakes was given so many opportunities that he would not have had without you.

Dustin Campbell

March 3rd, 2010 - Incredible 48 hours
WOW!!!!!!!! and I mean WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Just when we thought we were running out of options, a miracle happened. Earlier this week, Pancakes had a profile created for him at bunspace.com and the story of his life (well, of 1 month since that is all we know of him) was posted. He began accumulating a wonderful collection of dearly sweet and wonderful friends whom are supportive and encouraging to him (and us) and sympathetic to his plight. How encouraging? Well...one group of people who formed an organization called BIN (Buns in need) have helped fundraise for Pancakes and many of their members have sent donations to me. One particular woman (I'm not sure if she is associated with BIN or not and also I need to ask her if I can print her name) really went above and beyond. When she spread the word of Pancakes plight, donations started flying in from everywhere...last I checked we are over $700 in donations (and earlier today it was under $500...so it really is fast) I haven't checked in a while so I don't know where it is currently at. I will get to listing the donors (Time is a precious commodity at the moment and the pictures take a bit to prep for the site but I definitely will work on the donor page next) so please forgive me for being a bit behind at the moment. I need to contact many of the donors to ask them what information I can publish. If you have donated or going to donate, please let me know if I can publish any of the following: first name, last name, amount donated, and if you have a website you want linked to your credit listings. If you forget to do this, don't worry, I will follow up with an email and see what I am permitted to publish.

So what does this mean for Pancakes?
If Pancakes crashes again, we can afford to give him better treatment.
We can afford his current medicines/supplies/vet visits.
We should be able to cover a fair bit of his tooth repairs and discovering the exact cause of all this.
How much will we need? Not sure. I am going to email the vet for the best/worst case scenerios so we have some idea what to look for.
All-in-all, this means that we can finally breathe and take down the stress level by a zillion knotches. Because we don't know what the costs are, we are still encouraging donation because anything that is not spent on getting Pancakes better will be re-donated (that might not be a real English word) back to helping other bunnies who need our help. In fact, this week has been such a turn-around for me that I am going to keep on helping and fundraising even after Pancakes is better because Pancakes is not the only bunny in need of immediate care and my heart breaks for each and every one of them. If I can't save them myself, the very LEAST I can do is help the person who can save them by raising awareness and funding to these magnificent people who rescue bunnies and the equally magnificent people who support them.
So thank you! Thank you thank you! Please keep spreading the word and by all means, if anyone can donate, please do...your money WILL help a bunny (even if it isn't Pancakes).

On to Pancakes.
After the weekend emergency (which pretty much killed me), we were really counting on Pancakes to help us out by getting better, just enough, to not need to bring him back into emerg for more SQ Fluid (injecting water under his skin and letting his body absorb it to keep him hydrated). At this point, we were at $15 left and the cost would have been $50. We hoped he would be well enough to bring him in Monday morning to a kind, more lenient, more connected with Pancakes, vet...Dr Fleury. Thankfully, we had an incredibly low bill for some antibiotics that he prescribed and we were doing fine (broke but fine.) Thanks to Pancakes spirit, he did manage to not get worse, he was able to lift his head on sunday. He clearly wasn't his usual playful self and wanted to be babied by Maria a lot. He was a tad more active however. He was active enough that, if need be, we could get him to emergency. But he looked 100% like he would easily make it to Monday morning.

After the Monday visit, Maria noticed a lump on the side of his neck. She told me about it and all I could think of was "please! pleaaaaase do not let this be another problem". We booked an appointment for today to have it looked at, and get a refill on his painkillers. The doctor said it was likely his lymphnodes (hopefully I got that right) which are glands that help produce white blood cells (if i make a mistake, vets are welcome to correct me :) ) These lymphnodes increase in size when their bodies are fighting infections. Pancakes has been fighting his since we got him, so why didnt we notice?
That's where one mysterious clue and one possible improvement started to make sense. Pancakes drooled a lot. All day long. This could have been one of the reasons why he was dehydrated (and also why he would drink water for 10 minutes or more at a time). The drooling kept his front fur constantly wet (with bald patches in some of the areas near his chin and such). Maria noticed that he lost an incisor. Coincidentally (or not) he also began to stop drooling. When he used to eat his pellets, it was difficult for him to eat because as he chewed, the drool would carry his food back out of his mouth, leaving a mess in his food bowl. Guess what? No more messes. He is eating pellets with no evidence that it is going anywhere except his tummy. :) He is still eating critical care food but he eats his own meals after. Water may still be a problem for him, it's tough to tell, because he is a very messy drinker. He had an SQ Fluid injection again today just to be on the safe side because although he is now quite lively, hopping, and cuddling (he hopped across the room to give me a kiss yesterday...of course..it had to happen when my camera was full), his droppings at the vet were still tiny and odd-shaped so...to be on the safe side, the doctor recommended the SQ fluid. We agreed that Pancakes should come in twice a week for SQ Fluids (Mondays and Thursdays) until his washroom habits are back to normal.

His teeth are definitely not shaped the way they should be. That will be the next thing to get worked on (and hopefully the last thing that needs to be worked on.) Right now, it is too dangerous to fix. If he goes under anesthetics, he might not be strong enough to survive. If he doesn't go under, the stress alone of being held down while they fix his teeth could kill him. So...best course of action is wait until his weight and strength are back up. He needs his rest.

His cheek hole is getting MUUUUUUUUCH smaller. There is a possibility it will heal on it's own. Since we have to wait for him to recuperate from the weekend downfall, we bought mother nature some time to keep fixing his cheek. I can't believe what a huge gash it was and how it is tiny in comparison. If it doesn't heal over on it's own, the doctor can fix it.

So that's where he is at. I've updated the gallery and I am working on another video, but before i can put the video up, I have sooooo many thank you's to individually give and the donor page needs to be updated. It's late now (2:12 am, March 4th) and I work in the morning, so I am going to shuffle these files up on the website so you can see them :) More to come soon....
you can also check out Pancakes profile here

February 28th, 2010 - critical
First of all, WITHOUT YOU, Pancakes would not be here. Without you, we would not have had the money to take him to emergency. Without you, he would have had no options left.

The unfortunate news is that because of his trip to the emergency room, he has no more money left so, once again, he is out of options without you.

Today has been a major scare with Maria calling me shortly after midnight. She said Pancakes was unable to lift his head. His energy was gone. We agreed to keep monitoring him to be sure he wasn't just tired (he had a long day). But shortly after she called back. She was certain that Pancakes was dying. He was getting colder, lost his will to move or do anything. I was really hoping to avoid the outrageous costs associated with emergency clinics but our choices were to take him, or take the risk that he survives until Monday morning when we could bring him back to his vet.
The situation looked too grim to wait so by 2:30 am, he was checked into the animal emergency. It was frustrating because they couldn't even see him till 4 am. The doctor examined him and said that he was severely dehydrated (which i don't even know how that is possible because he drinks water like mad) and that his stomach was empty. There is a possibility that his kidneys are damaged but we can't afford to test it out.
In her initial assessment, she gave us two options.
1) Keep him hospitalized where he would be given an IV to get his fluids back, a warm environment to raise his body temperature, and regular intervals for feeding.
2) Injecting water under his skin, letting us take him home with some high maintenence of feeding him some "critical care" food and giving him a pain-killer.

Upon further examination, the vet discouraged the second option because she was convinced that he was more likely to pass away than recover. She gave the estimate on option 1 but with the $550-$800 price tag (which had to be paid 50% up front, 50% when he checks out) meant that there was no way we could choose this as an option. I told her we had to chance the second option of trying to fix him from home. She, not-really-discreetly, brought up the third option of euthenasia. I re-affirmed my decision for option 2. The doctor sold us painkillers (Buprenorphine) and some Critical Care food. The visit unfortunately set us back over $200 which eliminated everything we had left in the fund (his regular expenses of anti-biotics and medicine from his regular vet chipped away at Pancake's budget but $200 at his vet goes a LOT further than at the emerg).
They injected water under his skin, gave us the food and painkillers, and told us to come back tonight (Sunday evening after 8 pm) for another Sub-skin water treatment. The treatment costs $50 and I am heavily suspicious that the hospital cares a bit more about their wallet than the bunny so, we will keep an eye on his condition and decide closer to the time if we will be taking him back or waiting for Monday morning to see his regular vet.

**Update on update** Ok, i am very tired...i started sleeping at 6 am and need to be up every 2 hours to feed him...He remains limp and lifeless though he hasn't given up on eating as he is showing a want for food. I am supposed to give him 5 ml of this critical care food which is a powder mixed with 2 parts water. They gave me a syringe to feed him with but i had to switch to a spoon as the syringe would get clogged with the food and not allowing me to give a smooth, slow injection of the food in his mouth.

**another update** ok, i am up now for the day...he's gone through 7 2-hour feeding sessions (I took on 4 of them, and then Maria took the other 3 which let me sleep a bit). I woke up to find him energetic again, able to lift his head, and even clean himself. He is drinking water and eating pellets (but he was doing this before too so...i don't think his problems are over.) He is more active, having short jaunts, it's harder to keep him warm because he doesnt want to stay under the blankets (which, is a good sign I guess because last night, he was so limp and cold he didnt care where we put him and now he is being choosey again)
Regardless of anything else, he needs to be thoroughly checked out by the vet so we don't run into this problem again. Until then, we will keep on treating him, keep on loving him, and keep on finding ways to help bring in funding to keep Pancakes alive.

February 17th, 2010
We took Pancakes in for a checkup and to get his meds refilled. I understand more about what we are waiting for in terms of his healing. There is a small hole (inside the big hole) in his cheek. Aside from waiting for his infection to clear up 100%, we are also waiting to see if that little hole will heal on it's own. If it does, he will not need surgery (just his cheek sewn) which will bring his costs down considerably. If it doesn't heal on its own, he will need surgery which will be very stressful on him and costly..so let's hope Mother Nature is on our side. His eye is lightly scratched from some dry skin that was rubbing against it (we removed the dry skin) so hopefully his eye will heal 100% too (he has eye ointment to help out.) The swelling is nearly gone and the redness is fading away. All good signs. He is also hopping and playing and very very cheerful. At this point, I don't think he is in any life-threatening situations....so the fundraiser is more to ensure he can get the treatments that he needs. He is through the thick of it all and is working his way up to full health. He has a ways to go but at least the threat of losing him is gone.

February 15th, 2010
OK. Pancakes had another visit to the vet on the 12th (it was supposed to be the 11th but we couldnt get in). We needed a refill on one of his meds plus we wanted the doctor to check out his mouth again to see if this constant mouth movement was another issue. The doctor says his mouth is fine and that everything is normal (for his situation). The doctor thinks things are going well and he should come out of this fine. In about 10 days from now, we will visit again to see if he is ready to be sewn back up.

February 10th, 2010
Pancakes teeth grinding has become constant. He is still eating and drinking well but he is clearly bothered by the hole in his cheek. It's either itchy or painful because he does want to scratch it. It's difficult trying to stop him from make it worse. I REALLY hope we can get it sewn back up soon.

His eye has started to whiten and I am not sure if it is residue from the infection or if he is going blind.

My girlfriend is booking an appointment tomorrow morning, hopefully we can get him in tomorrow afternoon. If you can help us cover the costs, please help as soon as you can. Check out Pancakes Plea to find out how you can help