We've spent all afternoon at an emergency veterinary clinic in Skokie - Animal 911.

Why? It was Indy. Something happened to her and she was in very significant pain and under stress. We found her at the bottom of her bunny condo totally laid flat, panting heavily and not moving. When I tried to get her out of the cage, she just wouldn't move and was dead weight. She came out and ran around the room a bit, but immediately flopped on the ground. She couldn't get comfortable. Our vet was going to be closing in under an hour, so we called the 24-hour service that the vet recommended, which meant a long drive to Skokie.

It was a long afternoon. We got to Animal 911 just fine and they whisked Indy away. However, there were more and more patients falling in front of us that were just higher priority.

It wasn't fun. We saw a family bring in a long-haired German Shepard that couldn't walk. A tech came out with a sling so the dog could walk into the back. It was obvious what was going on - you could see it in the eyes of the owners. The dog had come to the end of its time on earth - it was time to put him (or her) down. It was a long process, with lots of tears being shed. We saw a father and son pull up to the vet. The father came inside and all we heard from the desk area was that his dog had dies. The tech and the receptionist brought a cart out to the car where the dad and son put the lifeless bundle wrapped in a towel onto the cart. It looked like it was a golden retriever. Again, more tears...

Our only saving grace was that we met a cat in the reception area. Nevis appears to live there, a great orange tabby. He had no problems with sleeping and playing with his mouse toy, but he would gladly sit in your lap and look longingly at the fish tank in the corner. He would sit on a bunch and leap at the tank every once in a while. It was great entertainment.

Indy was checked out and x-rayed. There's no obvious injury, though she does have some crystallization in her bladder - we have to watch her food intake and give her a steroid painkiller once a day and restrict her movements.

We got her home, stripped her condo, blocked the ramp to her 2nd floor, and moved everything downstairs for her.

She's REALLY stressed. She's not well. And there's nothing we can really do for her...

... and I'm scared. There's an awful lot of similarities between her symptoms and the way she looks and the way Max looked in his last days...

I'm scared.