Goodbye, Chuck

I haven’t posted much about it here, but those who follow me on Mastodon will know that over the summer of 2025 Chuck was hospitalized for a week due to some bladder sludge which turned into an infection and then also some neurological issues (possibly related to E. cuniculi, the parasite which most commonly causes “head tilt”).

Chuck was hospitalized because he wasn’t able to urinate on his own, and he had to have a catheter put in while he was in the hospital. Thankfully, we eventually got the sludge cleared out and the infection dealt with and he was able to urinate on his own again.

However, during his stay in the hospital he developed a secondary neurological issue (though we can’t rule out it being related to the urination issues). The most notable symptoms were that Chuck’s back legs became much weaker, and that he had a bit of facial contraction on his left side – causing him to have a permanent “sneer.”

Aside from this, however, he was otherwise fine – aside from now being a bit unsteady on his back feet. But this was relatively minor, and he went back to living his best life with Matilda.

We were grateful for every day – for a while there we thought that we would lose him, and that he wouldn’t get better (he’d had a catheter in and out over most of a week at the hospital). So when he did get better and was able to come home, we were very grateful just to have him. He was just about 10 years old when this happened, so we sort of knew that one day sooner or later something would happen.

In the meantime, though, Chuck continued to live the spoiled life that he and Matilda have been accustomed to – sleeping under the bed and invading my home office during the day to demand treats. They even started getting “herby salads” every morning, as we harvested herbs from our garden every morning to give to them as a treat.

Chuck enjoyed this life of luxury – hand-picked salad in the morning, treats whenever he wanted them, and able to sleep soundly anywhere in the house without fear.

However, this didn’t last. At the beginning of October, Chuck’s legs became weaker and weaker – until one day when he fell over when trying to hop out of his litter box.

We immediately cut down the side of the litter box and ordered him a new box with a lower entrance, but whatever was happening with his legs began to accelerate, and within a few days he was no longer able to move on his own. His back legs were still somewhat controllable, but he’d lost the fine control of one leg, causing him to tip over if he tried to hop anywhere – and his other leg wasn’t strong enough to carry the weight. Eventually, he just stopped trying to use them to move at all.

Chuck had effectively become an invalid, and we had to step up our care for him – carrying him around the house, cleaning up after his “accidents” at night, and trying to keep him clean.

During the day we’d give him medicine and do passive range of motion exercises to keep his limbs from seizing up, and then we’d let him sleep wherever he wanted (usually under the bed).

At night we’d tuck him into his litter box with a bunch of food within easy reach, so he didn’t have to try and crawl around on his own. (Despite his mobility issues, he was still eating, pooping, and peeing very well.)

We took him to the big vet hospital for physical therapy to try and make sure he wasn’t in any pain and that we kept as much mobility in his legs as we could. At home we even put him on a “PEMF Pad” – a type of “pulsed electromagnetic field” therapy which we’d heard good things about (although honestly I don’t know if it did anything – but he liked lying on the pad at least).

We even started looking into getting him a little bunny wheelchair for his hind legs, so he could maybe move around on his own – unfortunately, however, time was not on our side.

Chuck’s mobility continued to degrade to the point where he often couldn’t even sit (or lie) upright – he’d fall over onto his side. We got him a little pet bed with bolsters on either side to help keep him upright – and he seemed to greatly appreciate this.

Unfortunately, however, the last straw was when his bladder issues started to act up again – he was once again unable to urinate on his own. We had our local vet help us express his bladder, but it was a bit of a struggle. He was also on medicine that was supposed to help make it easier for him to urinate, but it wasn’t able to help against the neural degeneration that was happening in his body.

In the end, with him unable to urinate on his own and his condition only going to continue to get worse, we made the terribly difficult decision to have him put to sleep. We would have done anything for him, but the fact was that he was not going to get any better – he was only going to get worse – and manually expressing his bladder was not a sustainable option. Especially since it seemed the neural issues were causing one of his urinary sphincters to close, and he could not overcome this to let the urine out – the same problem had happened during his hospitalization over the summer, and the only solution was catheters, which again was not a sustainable option – nor something we wanted to put him through, especially at his age.

His last 12 hours were as comfortable and pleasant as we could make them – he had a lovely night sleeping in the pet bed (he enjoyed being able to stretch out his back legs without falling over), and a morning of being spoiled with all his favorite treats (blackberries) and lots and lots of pats and kisses.

He went to our local vet with Matilda, so he had his bunny girlfriend with him right until the end – a fact which calmed him greatly (he has always really loved Matilda). This also allowed us to give Matilda some closure, so she understands that he won’t be coming back.

(Matilda, for her part, his handling all this fine – she wasn’t bothered when Chuck was away at the hospital for a week, nor has she been bothered by being separated from Chuck at night.)

Chuck was our very, very special boy – he was just the sweetest little bunny, with plenty of attitude (or bunnitude) and the most amazing ears (everyone always commented on his fuzzy ears).

Chuck is now reunited with Delilah (his first and true love), but he will remain forever in our hearts – he was such a good boy and we loved him so very, very much. I miss him terribly already, but I will never forget him.

Binky free, Chuck – I love you always.