So this was a challenge from my sister-in-law Brooke, over at PlainAdvice.com. Brooke - I’m sorry it took me so long to write this - I’m not the most exciting person around. Anyway, Brooke wrote 8 random facts about herself, and challenged me to do the same.

1. My first job was when I was 11 or 12. I wanted horseback riding lessons, so for me to be able to pay for them, I cleaned out horse stalls for an hour each week to pay for my hour long lesson. (I loved it!)

2. I just got over a Milk Duds addiction. Ok, maybe not an addiction, but I really love Milk Duds, and I was eating about a box a day. I knew it was bad whenI was at the movie theater and ordered a box, and complained about how small it was. (Yeah, I’m on Weight Watchers now, and I’ve lost 7 lbs. - mostly due to kicking the Milk Duds habit, I think!)

3. When I was in 7th grade, all the schools in the school districts in San Jose auditioned kids to try out for a kids TV news anchor position. I won the nomination from my junior high school, and went to the news studio to try out. I had to try out in front of the reporters, on camera. (It wasn’t live, though.) I didn’t make the final cut, but it was exciting going to the studio to try out! (We had 10 minutes to memorize a news report - I think I did really badly, but it was fun!)

4. I was MVP and captain my senior year in high school of our Varsity girls soccer team.

5. Laundry is my favorite chore to do because I love having lots of clean clothes to pick from. It’s easy and brainless work, plus, when the laundry is done, it makes my room look less messy!

6. At our Grad Night (after my high school graduation), we had a hypnotist come and hypnotize some kids in front of the entire graduating class. I was picked to go up and get hypnotized. The hypnotist had me to up and dance like Madonna in front of my whole graduating class. Boy, I’m looking forward to my 10 year reunion next year! O_O

7. I was born in a small town called Johnson City in upstate New York. When I was born, apparently, I was still “in the sac.” If you don’t know what this means, I’m not going to explain it - go ask your mom. The doctors and nurses were so surprised that they called in other doctors to come and see…apparently they had never seen that before.

8. Over the years, I’ve had 11 different rabbits. (This does count Honey’s litter of 5, and the rabbits we tried to adopt.) Currently, I only have Honey Bunny, who has been plenty of bunny for us!

So there you go - 8 random things about me. Hopefully you’ve all learned something new! I would challenge Preston to do the same, but it would have to be 8 random internet marketing/internet retail facts about him.

Today I brought Honey back to the vet for a checkup. It’s been just over a week since we brought her home from the hospital, and she seems to be doing well. She does have hock sores on her feet, so we have to wrap her back feet and put neosporin on the sores to keep them from getting infected. She’s not a big fan of this…but we’ll try to help it heal quickly so it doesn’t become a chronic problem.

Dr. Orr said she’s doing well. We don’t have to give her Baytril (antibiotic) or pain meds anymore, but we still have to give her the fluid injections and Metaclopramide along with force feeding the Critical Care.

Hopefully she’ll start eating hay again soon, but she is doing a good job of eating her veggies. She’s running around more, and seems to be getting better and better. Dr. Orr is happy with her progress. She’ll go back in a couple of weeks so he can evaluate her progress at that point.

I’ve put off writing about this topic because for me, it’s pretty difficult to talk about. The whole dogfighting industry is disturbing, disgusting, and completely outrageous. It sickens me to think about the cruelty that was perpetrated on Michael Vick’s property, and now that he has pled guilty, obviously under his direction.

I don’t think Michael Vick is an evil person - but I do think he is someone that is disturbed and severly misguided. The thoughts of what happened on his property over the past few years have caused an outrage throughout the country, and probably the world. Even the NFL stepped up, indefinitely suspending him without pay. The Falcons are looking to recoup $22 million in bonus money, which seems to be why they haven’t cut him from the team.

Vick offered an apology today, apologizing to his young fans, and calling himself “immature.” I’m glad that he apologized - a nation was hurt and disappointed by his actions. I’m saddened that he didn’t express more apologies for perpetuating animal cruelty, however, I’m glad he apologized. Animal cruelty is a terrible thing, and unfortunately, Vick had to learn the hard way.

I remember watching Michael Vick play when we was at Virginia Tech - he’s an extremely talented person, and I do hope to see him play football again, after he has paid the price for his actions. I don’t think he should be condemned forever. He made some terrible, horrible mistakes, and he will pay a very high price for them. He needs to be given the chance, however, to redeem himself, and make up for it. I hope that he becomes involved with animal shelters, perhaps donating time and money to help fight animal cruelty. I think that despite this horrible thing, something good should come of it. Vick needs to work to do everything he can to help put an end to all animal cruelty, dogfighting included. Then, I think, the United States and his fans will be willing to embrace him again.

The Humane Society has put together a video contenst to help combat dogfighting. There are three finalists, and you can vote on the one that you feel has the most impact. Warning - some are graphic, and they will make you cry.

Humane Society Knock Out Animal Cruelty Video

So I haven’t had an update on Honey Bunny in a while…it’s probably because she’s home now, and we’ve been really busy taking care of her. She’s doing pretty well…eating her romaine lettuce and cilantro. I found a great rabbit supply company, Oxbow Hay, that specializes in exotics like rabbits, and they’re really knowledgable about the care of bunnies. I called and asked for some advice because Honey won’t eat her hay, and their representative, Pam, was amazing! She took 20 minutes on the phone with me to help me figure out how to get Honey Bunny to start eating hay again. She also explained the nutrition of different types of hay, and which would be best for Honey. She also gave me tips on helping Honey recover from her GI Stasis.

One tip she gave me for helping Honey to start eating hay again is to find something she likes (Cilantro, in her case), and somehow mix it in with her hay. She suggested getting dried cilantro flakes and sprinkling it in Honey’s hay. Well, that night when I tried it, Honey actually started eating hay again for the first time in quite a while! I couldn’t believe it! This is a HUGE step in the right direction.

Honey really seems to be on the road to recovery. One other problem that popped up, however, is since she was sick, she now has sores on her feet and toes, probably from sitting in a cage for most of the day when she was recovering. She didn’t have the energy to do much other than sit, so it seems this is normal. I’m taking her back to the vet on Thursday for a checkup, and I’ll have Dr. Orr examine her feet as well. I can tell she’s uncomfortable because her feet hurt, however, she’s so happy to be home and hopping around. It’s really refreshing seeing her doing so well.

I’ll write more updates soon…probably on Thursday.

Last night we brought Honey Bunny home from the hospital (again!), and she seems to be doing pretty well. We have to give her an injection of fluids every evening, and we still have to foce feed her, which is a little frustrating, and VERY messy. She’s also on a few different medications…Baytril (antibiotic), pain meds, and Metoclopramide, which helps with digestion. She takes it all in stride, and seems to be improving. She’s definitely not 100%, which has been hard. We want to see her back to her old self, but she does seem to be getting closer.

I guess I just need to remember patience…GI Stasis can take bunnies a very long time to recover from, and without such good care (such as what Dr. Orr and his staff provided for Honey), many rabbits don’t survive. I’m just grateful to have such a great rabbit hospital that can take care of her.

Keep getting better, Honey…we love you!

We spoke with the vet today, and he said Honey is doing very well. She’s been eating and drinking a little bit more on her own, so we’re planning on bringing her home tomorrow evening.

A change of scenery will be good for her - I’m sure she’ll be happy to finally come home to her own cage and surroundings. Plus, we’ve really missed her!

We’ll have to do the sub-q fluids and force feedings, but hopefully she’ll keep eating more and more on her own so we can wean her off of that. We’re so proud of her - she’s been one tuff bunny!

Today we went to visit Honey Bunny (again) and play with her. She’s doing pretty well - she’s not eating much on her own, or drinking, but I’m starting to suspect it’s because she’s lazy. Or maybe is just enjoying the attention from the staff at the animal hospital. She was doing well tonight - she was hopping around the visiting room, and seemed to be in a good mood. The staff was able to draw a little bit of blood to test for e. cuniculi, but it was not enough to re-test her kidney and liver levels. She’s going to stay again tonight at the hospital, and probably over the weekend. They will try to draw blood again to finish the tests - hopefully they’ll be able to get more this time.

It’s been encouraging visiting her and seeing her doing so well. Dr. Orr said it could take a few weeks before she’s eating all on her own, and not requiring force feeding. Hopefully on Monday she can come home again. We feel good about her staying at the hospital because they have the skills, staff, and tools necessary to keep her getting better and better. We just want to keep her going in the right direction. We’ll just keep praying that she stays on the right track. Thanks everyone, for your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. It’s working!

Preston and I went to visit Honey at the hospital today - we weren’t sure if we’d be able to bring her home yet. (We couldn’t - she’s not healthy enough yet.) She’s going to stay at the hospital because she needs sub-q fluids still - she’s still not eating or drinking on her own. Today, her lymph nodes were really swollen - she looked kind of lumpy on either side of her body. They still were unable to draw blood to test for pasteurella or e.cuniculi because she wasn’t healthy enough. (Yesterday when they drew blood to test her kidneys and liver, her veins kept collapsing.) Hopefully tomorrow (Wednesday) they’ll be able to do some more tests. And hopefully her kidneys and liver enzyme levels will be closer to normal.

The staff at the hospital said Honey was their favorite bunny ever because she’s so sweet and easy to take care of. She seems to know they’re trying to help her - she’s so good with all of her shots, sub-q’s, and blood drawings. When we visited her tonight, she was so excited to see us, and she ran around the visiting room. She seemed so much better - I’m sure our visits cheer her up. The staff said she always seems to be in a good mood and she perks up when we visit her. I’m sure it’s been so hard on her to be spending so much time in the hospital. We know it’s best for her, though, because they can give her all of the medicine and sub-q’s that she so desperately needs. I know it will take time (and money), but I have great hope that she’ll be able to recover from this. We’re so grateful to Dr. Orr and the staff at her pet hospital, - Creekside Animal Hospital. Their time, patience, and dedication is so greatly appreciated. We know Honey is under the best care, and we’re very hopeful that we’ll have a good outcome of all of this. We love our bunny! Get well, Honey!

So we had a rough weekend. Honey seemed to be doing better, but this morning, she couldn’t hop too well (her front feet didn’t seem to be working well), and she was crashing into things. Normally, she’s really agile, so I, of course, was worried. She’s also refusing to drink, which is not good, considering she needs to stay well-hydrated with her GI Stasis problem (which, by the way, seems to be under control).

I brought her back to her vet, and they’re going to keep her all day and do bloodwork and more x-rays. He thinks it could be E. Cuniculi, a type of parasite. If so, the prognosis isn’t great, but there are medicines that can help her get better. At any rate it’s been a roller coaster with poor Honey Bunny. I’m going to pick her up at the vet’s office this evening, so I’ll post an update when I have one.

Today was a great day - we got to bring Honey Bunny home. I still have to give her medicines and her special Oxbow Critical Care formula (no, this is not a paid advertisement), but she’s doing much better, and is back to her old ways. She immediately ran behind the couch as soon as I brought her home.

She started eating her hay and some romaine lettuce, which she hasn’t done in a while. She’s also drinking on her own, which is nice because I wasn’t looking forward to giving her subQ fluids (injections of fluids).

She’s really a miracle bunny, and we’re so happy that she’s healthy, happy, and home.

I’ve been thinking about all the bunnies I’ve had through the years, and I’m grateful that vet medicine has improved so much that she could survive GI Stasis, something that would have been fatal just a few years ago. Thanks to her vet, Dr. Orr, and his staff at Creekside Animal Hospital - they really know what they’re doing, and they saved her life. Thanks, also, to everyone that has been so supportive of me, Preston, and especially Honey Bunny.