Poor Oscar-Bear

(picture several months ago; before surgery)

This week has been very stressful, frustrating, and unproductive. My lingering cold has sapped all my energy, and I am completely out of my routine. I made a feeble attempt to do some workouts this week. Let's just say it didn't go well. I feel chronically tired and completely sapped of energy. I know it's the cold, and I am getting better on the whole. I am just freaking out about how much fitness I have lost. Basically, I've taken 2 weeks of R&R, and I have 8 weeks until Race Day. I'm hoping to ease back into this weekend with some good, short, confidence-building workouts.

On Monday night, I noticed Oscar has a huge lump on the left side of his jaw. Upon further examination, it seemed to be emanating from the bone. Great. I took him to the vet Tuesday morning, and, as I had feared, it was a molar abcess. I have no idea how he remained symptom-free all this time, and worse, I have no idea how long this infection has been festering without me noticing. I feel so negligent. He went in for surgery to have the abcess removed Tuesday afternoon. They tried to pull the suspect molar without much success (it came out in pieces). Apparently, he had a hole in the bone of his jaw, and the infection was inside the bone. All I can say is, OW! They made an incision on the side of his neck and took out the abcess (without going into more detail, I've been told by the vet techs that it was quite disgusting). They packed antibiotic-soaked beads into the hole to help fight the infection, and inserted a tube into his jaw (coming out his throat) to help drain the rest (yes--very gross). I picked him up on Tuesday night. He was groggy and his neck is shaved, covered in stitches, and has a tube poking out of it. He looks a little like a big bunny with a skinny turkey neck; poor guy.

Since then, I've been tending to him constantly. Wednesday, he spent the day huddled up in his box while his tube drained, not eating, drinking, playing, or looking at all comfortable. He's in a lot of pain as his jaw heals and can't eat very well. He's on pain meds, stomach meds, and antibiotics (which I have to inject daily for 3 weeks--yuck). Plus, I'm force-feeding him with a syringe, which is just awful and very messy. The only thing that seems to comfort him are the hot compresses I apply to his drain, which I do for 20 minutes, twice a day. He curls up on the hot washcloth and presses down on top of it, closes his eyes, and purrs. I took him back to the vet on Thursday so they could give him fluids and meds for his tummy (when bunnies don't eat, their digestive system shuts down, which further keeps them from eating). He finally seemed to come around a little Thursday night when he started eating lettuce with enthusiasm. Today, he seems even more perky. He came out of his box and spent the day on his blanket. His drain hasn't been leaking "stuff" today, which makes him feel a lot better and makes me hope that maybe his infection is clearing. He goes in again tomorrow to have the drain taken out. I can't wait. I know that thing has been making him feel really icky.

I'm very hopeful that he will heal. I think he will continue to improve from here on out. I just pray that the antibiotics work and the infection goes away so that the abcess doesn't re-develop in the future. I don't want to have to put him through this again.

Needless to say, between my being sick and Oscar being sick, it's been a very stressful week.