I was expecting my chance to do it during the practice cave rescue on Sunday. Thirty five people, some of whom had never been in a cave before, would be working in jagged, awkward ankle-twisting positions. That was fertile soil for injuries.
Saturday was nonstop learning. The class was a summary of a weeklong course offered in Indiana, which itself is a summary of cave rescue in general, which is so different every time it's performed no comprehensive book could be written about it. Despite that, we came out more informed than we came in.
After an afternoon of crawling in playground gravel, pretending the slides were tight cave passages, Saturday's class was over. The Women's Auxiliary of Knox made us a very nice ziti and meatball dinner, which everyone gorged themselves with. They rolled back to their cars, too big to probably get in the cave now, and drove back to their tents. I was camping at the firehouse, and wasn't aware that all but two people would be camping five miles away from me. So I had nothing to do, and no one to do it with. The sky was getting darker, so reading outside wouldn't even be an option. The drive in called.
Coming up here, I passed an honest-to-God drive in movie theater. I'd never been to one before. I always wanted to. It was a dead piece of Americana, like drug store malted milk and the traveling circus. If I had a choice, I wouldn't have gone alone, but it was that or going to bed at 8:30. Plus, Evolution had just come out, and if any movie in the past five years was engineered for the drive in, Evolution was it.
It was an hour away, and it was an hour from sunset, so I'd make it there just in time. I was hesitant about putting two unneeded hours of driving on my car so soon after its calamity of the week, but it wasn't like there was a bus stop.
A minute or two of parking lot circling gave me the confidence that my car could make the trip, so off I floored it. Five minutes into the trip, I spotted a dead rabbit in the middle of the opposite lane. A car drove over it, and the force of the car moved it a little. I wondered if the rabbit was still alive, but just then the radio kicked out for a second. That was the exact same thing that signaled my battery's temporary death the day before.
I pulled into the first gas station I found (I needed gas anyway). "It's pretty unlikely," I asked inside, "but do you have a volt meter here?"
"I'd say really unlikely," said the customer behind me. He was right; they didn't even have an ATM machine. I went out, checked the belt, gave a good hard stare at the rest of the engine. I decided to go back to the firehouse. It wasn't worth the risk. (Probably for the best; everything I've heard since says Evolution sucks.)
The dead bunny was still in the middle of the road. As my front wheels straddled it, I saw it try to get up and move. That was no wind; it was definitely still alive.
I pulled over and ran back to where he laid. He (she, maybe) was just sitting there. I didn't see any damage to the body, any blood or skid marks. Something had to be wrong, though. I bent down to pet him, and he tried scampering away. His front legs started going, but the back legs stayed on the ground like a seal. My guess was his back was broken.
I had just spent the whole day listening to the dangers of spinal immobilization. The right thing to do would be gently roll him onto a backboard, then strap his body, neck especially, into it. I didn't have a rabbit-sized backboard with me. The bunny didn't understand the medical safety in not moving. And if I left to whip up something from the car, another car could come and crush his skull. I scooped him up carefully, trying to keep the spine immobilized, and carried him to my passenger seat.
He was scared for twenty seconds or so, but then he stopped scampering and just lay in the seat. He didn't look in pain. I found a bloody spot the size of a quarter on his back. That must have been where the car hit him. I guessed the spinal column was neatly snapped. I didn't know how long rabbits lived with broken backs.
A plot point from something I wrote in college called Jack and Jill involved a bunny hit by a car. I wrote that the bunny was wounded, but not spilling out guts. The bunny in my seat was wounded, but not spilling out guts. I was pretty sure I had goofed on the veterinary details, but apparently not. The Jack and Jill bunny's name was Lenny. This one would also be Lenny. Life imitates art (if anything printed in a college paper could be called art).
I came back to the firehouse at sunset. The one other camper was the burly guy with the tumbleweed white beard. He saw the bunny, and melted. "Hey there little fellah! What're you doing here?"
"I found him in the middle of the road. I think a car hit him. I don't know what to do with him."
"Oh, you've going to spoil him rotten! Yes you are! Yes you are!" The clich� is always to flip the gruff guy into the puppy dog instantaneously, but it was nice to see the clich� had a factual basis.
The firehouse was left unlocked, so I carried Lenny into the main room and set him on a particle board table. A quick raid of the firehouse fridge yielded some lettuce. I put that and a saucer of water by him, in case he was hungry or thirsty. He didn't seem interested, and furthermore was scared by sitting on top of the table. I moved him to the carpet, and made the same mental note to watch my feet that I do whenever I put a can of soda down.
I sat with him, reading a book, for about an hour. Then I realized the rec room of the firehouse was available, with a 63" TV. Lenny still seemed a little put off by his surroundings, so I moved him to the far corner of the room. I turned the lights off as I left. Hopefully it would make him feel protected, enough so he'd eat a little.
I went back up after Back to the Future III finished on USA, to check him out. Maybe he was just looking for a little privacy to die in peace. Nope, still alive. He hadn't touched the lettuce, although he spilled the water a bit. I refilled it, and left him alone. He probably wouldn't make it through the night.
Sunday morning, I came into the main room to find thirty people eating breakfast. I checked the corner, and sure enough, there was the bunny, unnoticed by anyone. I ducked down and reached to pet him, expecting a stiff corpse. But he was alive. The lettuce was gone. I put the saucer of water to his mouth, and he took a big sip.
A little crowd started to build. Lenny tried to escape. His front paws caught on the carpeting, and he dragged himself a good body length or two. He left a pellet or two in his wake. Nice to see the gastrointestinal system was still intact from start to finish.
Once people realized there was a hurt bunny in the room, I got about thirty pieces of advice on what to do with him. Keep him well fed, have him put to sleep, see what a vet can do, put him back in the woods and let nature run its course. A few people had bunnies, but all of theirs had intact vertebrae.
I said his name was Lenny, but I didn't explain why. They probably assumed it came from Of Mice and Men, which it did indirectly. I could guarantee that no one in the room had read Jack and Jill. Or Ted and Jed, the mystery serial I used to put in the caving newsletter. Or Alan Smithee, my fictional film reviews. Jeez, I had all the audience of a Esperanto teacher.
Lenny was safe in the room, so we left him there for the practice cave rescue. It was a total disaster, with the 'patient' being moved all of thirty feet in four hours. A piece of rock knocked from the cave ceiling hit our patient square in the chest, after bouncing square off my nose. No one got hurt for real, so no one would get to play hero. We'd have to be content with ... playing hero.
Lenny was still alive when we got out of the cave, so I took him home with me. I was hoping one of the rabbit owners would volunteer to nurse Lenny back to health, but that didn't happen. I was driving south in the afternoon, so all the sun went toward me and Lenny stayed cool in his passenger seat. Fifteen minutes in the trip, I saw a car pulled over with its blinkers on. I pulled over and ran back to it, thinking I'd get to help a human. Nope; it was just an old woman birdwatching. As I went back to my car, another car pulled over and asked if I needed any help, since I was walking away from a car with its blinkers on. I highly recommend breaking down in Albany County.
The radio fizzle must have been a fluke, since I had an eventless trip home. The Jersey City potholes had a rudimentary sense of decency, so I had a smooth ride to my place. I carried Lenny inside with my cave gear. He left several pellets on my seat.
I cut the front panel off a cereal box and placed Lenny inside. It wasn't much room, but he was just lying there, so he didn't need much room. I put some more lettuce in the box with a few chopped up carrot bits. I figured that would hold him well. I stashed him in a corner of the kitchen where he wouldn't be underfoot.
I dug out my trusty gerbil book, which is a comprehensive guide to all manner of small furry pets. There's more on rabbits in there than on gerbils. So what did I learn about my rodent? First of all, he's not a rodent; he's a lagomorph, which is a different grouping that includes rabbits, hares, and Himalayan creatures called pikas. Rabbits and hares are different, incidentally: rabbits are social, live underground and have no stamina, while hares are solitary, live above ground, and have good staying power. I had no idea if Lenny was a rabbit or a hare. The caver in me hoped for rabbit.
The gerbil/rabbit book said if there was no change in three weeks after 'paralysis', the outlook was bleak. Three weeks? Would Lenny have to go through with three weeks or more of cereal box lying? What exactly could be done for fixing a broken bunny spine? We can't even fix spines in humans.
What about a vet? What could he do? He could charge me $200 to tell me his back was broken. Probably another $200 for an X-ray, to make sure his back's broken. And then another $200 to put him to sleep. Might as well just sign my paycheck over. There was that remote chance that this was some fixable, but that was as remote as Pluto.
The guilt dropped on me at work Monday. Lenny could be in pain. I figured since he wasn't twitching, making noise, or otherwise indicating discomfort, he was comfy. But rabbits never make noise. What was I expecting, "Hello Sean, I'm a talking rabbit, and I'm currently in silent inperceptable agony. Please escort me to the nearest veterinary facility for humane cessation of life's functions,"? Mental confusion from not moving his legs alone could be screwing him big time. Left on the road, Lenny would have undoubtedly been creamed within the hour, if a predator didn't find the free meal. But in my kitchen, he could linger around for days, weeks, maybe months.
I checked Lenny as soon as I got home Monday. There was a puddle of very watery diarrhea covering half the cereal box. I picked him up out of there, and more poured out. That gastrointestinal system only had a day or so of usage in it. It didn't seem to stop his appetite any: all the carrots and lettuce were gone. I made him a fresh box and filled it with more carrots, more lettuce, and a handful of Cheerios.
If anyone's read the Maxx comics (or seen the MTV show back in 1995) they know the whole thing came about because of a kid's psychological disturbance from a wounded rabbit that wouldn't die. Great: out of the three rabbit fictions that came to mind, one of them leads to me becoming an insane homeless guy who wears all purple, one leads me to get shot in the back of the head by my best friend, and the third has me reunited with my girlfriend. Maybe I'm biased, but I preferred the way Jack and Jill turned out.
I cracked my phone book and called every number that looked useful. There were two listings for Jersey City animal shelters. Both gave me recorded messages that there were no shelters in Jersey City, but with my donation maybe there would be. The SPCA (apparently they dropped the A a year or two ago) told me to call back in the morning, to get the number of rabbit specialists. There was only one vet in all of Jersey City to call. Hoboken, a city the size of a bathroom tile, has several, while Jersey City, one of the ten biggest cities in the country (for car theft), just has the one. The receptionist there said she didn't know what could be done, but I could make an appointment to have him put to sleep. I declined.
Tuesday morning came. The carrots, lettuce and Cheerios were gone, and Lenny was in another puddle. I gave him more of all of the food, and added a slice of apple. He was getting quite a little sausage belly on him. I didn't know if this was weight gain or internal swelling.
From my office phone at work, the SPCA gave me a small animal specialist. I think she mostly helped wounded birds, but a small animal was a small animal. She wasn't surprised by the rabbit, and said I should have him put to sleep as soon as I could. "He may not look it, but he is suffering," she said. I always knew in the back of my head I'd have to put Lenny to sleep, but this was what confirmed it. No more being wishy-washy when there's someone suffering because of it.
I made an appointment at the Jersey City vet for after work. When I got home, I checked Lenny. He didn't seem to be in pain. He never did. But it wasn't like he could get better. He was in another puddle, so I cut up my last cereal box.
Before I left, I held the rabbit up to the gerbils, let them meet each other. I was hoping they wouldn't be scared by something ten times their size, but they seemed to feel the bond of minimum wage on the food chain.
I was expecting a massive super-vet with three levels of parking and a drive through lane, but it was a textbook example of a normal sized veterinary office. I filled out my paperwork (naming the rabbit "Rabbit") and got charged in advance for the injection and body disposal. There was that outside chance Lenny was fixable, but I wasn't kidding myself. There wasn't going to be any upside to this. I try to help out, and I get stuck with a $63 vet bill and a garbage bag full of rabbit diarrhea.
One of the assistants asked if I remembered her. Huh? Turns out she was at a grotto meeting a few months ago, curious about caving. As with all new people, I gave her a newsletter. She said she really liked one story inside, about the car that got stolen. She didn't know who wrote it.
By sheer coincidence, I ran into the world's only Ted and Jed fan. I had stopped writing it a few months ago, based on me not running it in the grotto newsletter any more. As soon as I didn't have that monthly deadline, poof, there went that gun to the head to write it. It helped that I didn't know if anyone read it.
She took the rabbit and me into an examination room, and I met the vet. He took a quick look at Lenny, and said I had made the right choice to put him to sleep. His life would definitely not be improving in the future. Rabbits break their backs rather easily, I found out. Sometimes just staying in their cages, they'll hop wrong and snap. They're not built for sturdiness.
He left the room and came back with an innocuous looking needle of clear fluid. The femoral vein was the best place to inject a rabbit, but most rabbits wouldn't allow it. Lenny, however, couldn't feel his legs, so he was a good candidate. "Otherwise we'll have to go with a heart stick," the vet said.
The femoral vein was very pronounced with Lenny. The vet tried the right leg, but drew back after the initial stick. "The vein collapsed," he said, trying for another take. He tried the right leg again, then the left leg, then the left leg again. Rabbits really weren't built for sturdiness. I was glad Lenny wasn't feeling any of this. He eventually went for the heart stick, an quick but gentle injection in the middle of the chest.
Lenny's eyes went out. They lost a bit of their glossiness as his body relaxed on the metal table. No pain. Just a humane cessation of life's functions, just like he asked for.
I guess that was my favor repaid. Life's certainly not so balanced that one good deed = one good deed, but it worked out that way for me. With the bonus of me finally getting the inspiration to finish up Ted and Jed, knowing there's a reader for it. Thanks, Lenny.