On Following Your Heart

This is an unusual tale about a colonoscopy, a baby bunny, resilience and hope, and steadfastly choosing to follow your heart.

Since my only brother passed away at the age of 39 from colon cancer, I have been deemed high risk for the disease myself, and have been instructed to get a colonoscopy every five years. Last Thursday morning, after surviving 24 hours of the most horrid bowel-cleansing prep for the procedure, my husband finally was driving me to my colonoscopy appointment. As we pulled out of our driveway, he spotted something moving on our neighbor’s driveway. It was a baby bunny. A tiny, little, furry thing, abandoned and visibly injured.

It lay squirming on its side on the hot, concrete driveway, helplessly swinging its tiny little legs back and forth. We already were running 10 minutes late to my appointment, but I insisted on him stopping the car. It appeared that the bunny was in a bad state, occasionally convulsing and trembling, and likely on its last breaths. My husband suggested moving it off the driveway and into a shaded grassy patch to die. But I insisted on moving it to a slightly safer spot, such as our backyard. So I ran back into our house to retrieve a shoe box and lined it with a towel, and we gently placed the bunny in the box, and the box under a tree in our backyard. I hastily ripped off some leaves and flowers and placed them in the box alongside the bunny, in case it magically conjured the energy and ability to nibble. I was also able to find a little squirt bottle that my daughter played with in my kitchen, and I squirted some water on the bunny’s mouth and body to try to cool it down.

At this point we were getting a bit desperately late to my appointment, so we hopped back into the car and sped off, almost entirely certain that the poor little thing would be dead upon our return.

My procedure was seamless and they spotted not a thing awry. Three hours later, we returned to the house, and I immediately went to check on the bunny. To my astonishment, the bunny was alive, still kicking and squirming, occasionally convulsing, and desperately fighting for its breath. So weak and so strong at the same time. I was amazed by the little guy’s resilience. And it broke my heart. I called a couple veterinarian clinics in the area, both of which informed me they did not treat wild animals. They referred me to a non-profit organization in Eudora, Kansas, called Operation Wildlife. The problem was that it would take an hour to drive there.

My husband and son were certain the bunny was mere moments away from dying. In addition, I was starving. Per my prep instructions, I hadn’t eaten solid food in over 36 hours at that point. The nearby veterinarian clinics had denied the bunny, so even though my heart was hurting, we decided to head to brunch. I selfishly hoped the bunny would die while we were away, to put me out of my misery at witnessing it suffer.

One breakfast sandwich, one skillet egg hash, and a couple pancakes later, my husband, son, and I were back at the house. And to my utter disbelief, the little guy was still alive in our backyard, kicking, squirming, convulsing, trembling, and breathing really hard.

That was it. That was the moment I decided to listen to my heart. And my heart clearly told me that I had to help this bunny in any way that I could. It was personal now. I picked up the box and brought it into our home. We decided to name him Pepe. I tucked Pepe into the towel and gently rubbed his head and back. I attempted to call a couple more veterinarian clinics in vain. One of the clinicians politely suggested to me that I leave the bunny be and “let nature takes its course.” To which I retorted the obvious: “If I leave it, it certainly will die!” She did not reply.

I called Operation Wildlife, where a friendly lady informed me that they would, in fact, care for the bunny if I brought it in. She told me she’d require a donation, which did not concern me. I then announced to my husband and son that I was headed out on the almost one-hour drive to Operation Wildlife. They both looked at me wide-eyed and intrigued. They neither protested nor encouraged me. I wondered in that moment if they thought I was being crazy, but they could tell that I was determined so they weren’t going to get in my way.

And perhaps I was being irrational. After all, I hated driving. I always was driving the kids around to unknown soccer fields, tennis courts, track fields, and dance stages, and I balked at the thought of any unnecessary driving. Especially to unknown places. I also had just completed a medical procedure under anesthesiology and had been instructed not to drive and to rest that day. I had a long list of neglected to-do’s – including heaps of dirty laundry and piles of dirty dishes – since I had spent the last day and a half in miserable procedure prep. And at the end of the day, Pepe was just a rodent, dozens of which I spotted in my backyard and actually considered a nuisance since they had recently taken to eating my carefully planted flowers.

But my heart told me otherwise. And my heart was loud and clear. I had to at least try. On this day, I chose to listen to my heart.

I put Pepe’s shoebox in the passenger seat next to me, loaded the address into my car GPS, and headed out. I usually listen to loud music in my car, but I turned it off for Pepe’s sake. As I drove, I constantly wondered if this story would end with Pepe dying during the car ride. I checked him at every traffic light, and wondered if that would be the light at which I found him dead, and had to turn back around. During the ride, I gently stroked and petted him, and it appeared to soothe him. At one point, he raised his head and peacefully closed his eyes as I gently rubbed his head. I softly murmured encouraging words to him. “Just hang in there,” “I am getting you help,” “We are so close.” He went into convulsions again, which the Operation Wildlife lady later informed me were seizures. At one point, he made a series of adamant noises halfway between squawking and meowing. I wasn’t sure if it was an exclamation of appreciation or a cry for help, or perhaps both.

The drive was an adventure in itself. After multiple exits, I hit unpaved backroads, and passed by railroad tracks and vast stretches of farmland. My car bumped along the pebbly road and I shifted Pepe’s box to make sure it didn’t slide off the seat. At one point I crossed a farmer on a tractor checking his mailbox, and he waved at me. Just me and my little Pepe on an unusual mission for survival.

Finally, my GPS popped up a checkered flagged, which indicated I had arrived. I saw a wide driveway with various cars and pickup trucks parked around it, and a building which looked like a farmhouse, but could be Operation Wildlife? I tentatively drove up the driveway, wondering if I was trespassing or if I had reached my destination. I sighed with relief when I noticed the small wooden sign that said “Operation Wildlife.” I pulled to a stop and proudly announced to Pepe that we had made it.

Before we exited the car, I petted Pepe a little more, and realizing I hadn’t taken any photos of him, I took a few. I would want to remember him – and share his story. And stories are always better with pictures. Especially when the subject was as cute as him.

I carefully carried the shoebox into the building and was relieved to find the door unlocked and two women seated at a desk. The building was cluttered with cages, boxes, tins, cans, and all sorts of miscellaneous items, and it smelled foul too. But I couldn’t have been happier to be there – with Pepe still alive, nonetheless!

The younger of the two ladies picked up the shoebox and handed me some paperwork. As I filled it out, she gently picked Pepe up and tenderly asked him, “What happened to you, little guy?” I felt a sense of validation in that moment. I wasn’t alone in caring deeply for this creature. She cared for him too. My efforts and travels that day weren’t in vain. His life was worth saving.

The younger woman consulted with the older one and confirmed Pepe had a head injury. She deftly delivered a shot that would prevent his seizures. I breathlessly asked a few questions. How old was he? Was he independent? What would they feed him? (He was about two weeks old, not independent yet, and they would have to tube feed him). She informed me he would eventually be mingled with other orphaned bunnies his age, and hopefully released into the wild.

I wondered if they knew that Pepe likely was not going to make it, despite my and their best efforts, and chose to hide that fact from me. That thought bothered me for a while. But then I found great comfort in my heart because I knew I had done all that I could. I took a few more photos of Pepe in his new caretaker’s hand, stroked his head one last time, and left. My heart felt 10 pounds lighter.

I’m not sure how this story fits into the big picture of my blog. Perhaps this was just a day in my life that resonated so deeply with me, and it came with a story that I simply had to share. Some stories just pour out of you, and this was one of them. Perhaps the lesson is that sometimes it’s a good idea to break all our plans for the day and do something completely ordinary but so extraordinary at the same time. Or perhaps the biggest lesson is that sometimes, when our heart speaks to us so loudly, we must stop and listen to it. Whether it be people we choose to love, passions we choose to follow, or creatures we choose to save. We won’t regret it. And it may be when we feel the most alive.