The Wombat Warrior
Mulan's mum was hit by a car south of Sydney and sadly didn't survive. A caring bypasser stopped to check on the wombat and discovered she had a little joey in her pouch. As they were on their way to Sydney, they collected the joey, put it in their car and continued on their trip. Once in Sydney, they took the joey to a vet close to their home and the vet then contacted Sydney Wildlife to organise a carer for her.
Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of the battle for little Mulan.
When she arrived she was approximately 3 months old, weighed only 600 grams and was very sick. She developed septacemia (blood infection) in the first couple of days and had to be rushed to an after hours vet to have a cannula put in her arm as she was too sick to drink her formula and was quickly dehydrating and loosing her fight against this horrible infection.
She was given fluids through the cannula by her carer every 2 hours for 48 hours and on day 3 we started to introduce oral fluids and still use the cannula to top up her fluid intake. On day 4 we were able to remove the cannula as she was now able to take enough formula from her bottle feeds every 2 hours. During this time she was also on 3 injections a day of antibiotics and painkillers.
Feeding through cannula
Mulan won the fight and continued to grow and be an active little wombat doing all the right things for her age.
Until she was around 1.6kgs in weight and suddenly she started refusing her bottles. This led us to believe she may have had a serious stomach or intestinal issue. After many vet visits and various x-rays and treatments to try and find the problem it was decided to do a laparotomy (incision into the abdominal cavity).
Mulan's surgery scar
Luckily there was no twisting of the bowel but they discovered the lymph glands were enlarged and she also had gut stasis. She then went back onto fluids and commenced a course of laxitives, pain killing injections, antibiotic injections and after 10 days of intensive care and daily checkups Mulan was showing remarkable improvement.
Once again Mulan the Wombat Warrior won her battle against the odds.
She is continuing to eat well, enjoy her bottles and be a normal active wombat joey. We are hopeful that she has now fought her last battle and can enjoy the rest of her time in care before eventually going to our rehab facility to prepare her for release.
Mulan now enjoying life
By Joan Reid - Sydney Wildlife Volunteer
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