As you know from my blog post earlier this year EMDR Diaries - Chapter 1 I've started EMDR treatment to try and help with the bad memories and emotions that contribute to my BPD. Because of the lockdown these sessions have switched to Zoom sessions at home and rather than the pretty flashing lights the treatment itself is me tapping my legs (sounds weird in writing and probably sounds even weirder to my parents and the dog coming from my room!). I've finished the first 'memory' of the treatment which was the circumstances that lead to me leaving my job with the community NHS team. As a result I feel a lot less bitterness about the experience but also have learnt that I shouldn't put the blame solely on myself and that I should have been better supported around workloads, my mental illness etc.
The next subject I'm moving onto is one of the ones that I've been dreading the most. The loss of my beautiful bunny Estelle (aka Stelly, Stellington, Stellybear) back in 2017. Of all my life experiences this is probably the worst thing that has happened to me, I'd take the years of bullying at school and work multiple times over rather than the loss of Stelly.
I'm going to put a ****TRIGGER WARNING*** here for anyone easily upset by animal unhappiness (I can read all sorts of things about war, COVID-19, generally depressing human subjects but give me the smallest hint of something bad happening to an animal and I'm done 😭).
It all started at the end of April 2017 when I'd picked Stelly up to put her back in the hutch after she and Esme had spent the afternoon in their grass run. To this day I don't know if I lost grip on her or she jumped but suddenly she hit the edge of the hutch, shot down the ramp and let out two screeches that put a scar on my heart and lead me to bursting into immediate tears.
To cut a long story short she'd hit her 'lady parts' so hard she caused permanent nerve damage that left her unable to walk as well and utterly incontinent. If you picked her up she would just pee, each morning I would clean her up as best I could, give her Metacam to try and solve any pain she might have had.
Up until that awful day we were at the vets every few weeks, trying to find ways to help her, giving her a bunzillian to try in vain to keep her clean (Esme now has the pleasure of these as she's become a little incontinent with age)
But Stelly still seemed happy, she kept her appetite (her greatest pleasure in life was eating) and would join Esme on the grass until Esme's zooming and occasional barrel into her got too much.
Then on the afternoon of 21st June 2017 things changed. I got home from having a swim after work and could tell something wasn't right. She didn't seem to be moving as well and had soiled herself quite badly. Dad and I cleaned her up and put her back in the hutch and she munched away on the grass I'd pulled up for her with her normal gusto. I wish I'd had a better look, I wish I'd not stopped that extra hour for a post work swim, I wish I'd insisted we called the vet to have her checked over. Instead I covered them up and gave them their dinner and went to bed myself.
The next morning I came down ready to get Stelly up and washed before giving them their breakfast and cleaning the hutch as best I could to meet Esme's OCD standards. When I saw Stelly laying in the run I could see something wasn't right. When I picked her up I could tell what was wrong immediately. She had the dreaded flystrike (I'm not going to describe it here as the memory makes me sick, you can Google it but I really wouldn't). I knew then that it was all over, that I'd failed my poor bunny. I was on hold trying to get through to the emergency vet but they never answered. All I could do was wait to get hold of our normal vets when they opened at 9am. They told us to come straight in. Around 9.30am on the 22nd June 2017 Stelly passed away and went to join Kay at the Rainbow 🌈 Bridge.
The only benefit of her nerve damage was that Stelly wouldn't have been able to feel anything that was going on, which is a small blessing.
The legacy of that day is my utter guilt over what happened to Stelly, the sick feeling from that morning. I'm constantly paranoid about Esme's health, convinced that at every vet visit for jabs or bunzillians (sorry again Esme) they'll find something wrong with her or think that I'm not taking good enough care of her. I'm dreading tomorrow as I have to take her for a check over and potential blood test to check her liver function (it's so that they can continue to prescribe her painkiller that helps keep her moving and hopping around her domain) and I'm terrified they'll find something underlying wrong with her that I haven't noticed despite my scrutinising her several times a day (she loves me....)
I'm so scared about facing the emotions of that time, the feelings that still keep me up at night and worrying about Esme. I think this one will take a lot more work to get through.
I'm going to leave you with my favourite photo of the girls together that sits in front of my TV as a constant reminder that bunnies don't approve of me......
Love Jen
XxxX
