There was unrestricted viewing of Disney and National Geographic DVDs, and a stock of favorite snacks. But Holli - who goes by a single name - was not a model hospital patient. While recovering from complicated surgery, she methodically yanked out every staple from her 10-inch-long incision. Another time, she looked a medical resident in the eye and ripped a catheter from her arm. Boredom gave way to tantrums.
That was all fine by the hospital staff. "She's starting to act like a gorilla again, which is good," said James J. Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo, which is run by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Holli's illness, treatment and recovery offer an unusual behind-the-scenes look at the zoo, a leader in conservation and zoo science. Her surgery and recuperation took place in the zoo's 30,000-square-foot health center, one of the most sophisticated animal medical facilities in the country, with three wards, a nursery, an intensive care unit, molecular and pathology laboratories and an operating room.
Holli's case involved 24-hour veterinary care for several weeks; tests, including a CT scan, both on and off site; and a decision to call in a team of Mount Sinai surgeons who, it turned out, were in the best position to navigate a gorilla's anatomy.
"Most veterinarians know their way around the abdomen of a cat or a dog," said Dr. Bonnie Rafael, one of seven veterinarians on staff at the zoo. "But particularly with great apes, because they are so closely related to people, we will tap into specialists who treat humans."
One of 18 gorillas at the zoo, Holli, 23 and the dominant female in her troop, was not alone in the health center. During her stay, a newborn red panda was being hand-raised there, along with a couple of young Fennec foxes whose mother was unable to rear all five of her kits. ("It was a little too much for her," Rafael said.)
Also admitted were a male goat who had suddenly gone blind and a capuchinbird, native to South America, with "feather issues."
It was a rough summer for Holli, a Bronx native born at the zoo in 1989. The first signs of trouble were a loss of energy and appetite. She eventually shed 30 pounds. X-rays, blood tests and an ultrasound revealed the problem: a deep abscess in her abdomen. That's when the call went out to Dr. Stephen R. Gorfine of Mount Sinai, through an acquaintance of Rafael's.
On Sept. 6, he arrived at the health center with his partner, Dr. Daniel A. Popowich, and a vascular surgery team from Mount Sinai, all of whom donated their services. "I was expecting an 800-pound gorilla," Gorfine said. "They said there's no such thing as an 800-pound gorilla."
(For the record, at that point Holli weighed 180 pounds; the zoo's largest gorilla is Ernie, an adult male, or "silverback," who weighs 450 pounds.)
Right before the surgery, Rafael handed the surgeons a faded book on gorilla anatomy, which they flipped through.
In the operating room, they draped Holli, isolating the surgery site, and proceeded to remove part of her colon. "We didn't know what to expect," Popowich said. "Once we got inside, it was all the same. You'd think it was a human."
After being stitched and stapled, instead of a hospital bed, Holli returned to a large shipping crate in a private room to recover. On a visit in late September, she was sitting calmly in the crate. Taped to the wall was a get-well card with orange and purple splotches, painted by two gorillas in her troop (with help from the animal keepers). Nearby were containers of kale, cherry tomatoes, green beans and sunflower seeds. Outside her crate a monitor was playing a DVD from the popular "Planet Earth" series.
Whether Holli gleaned anything from the video was anyone's guess. "It's so she has something to look at," Rafael explained. "Sometimes she turns and stares at the screen."
Boredom was the least of her problems, however. Holli continually pulled at the catheter that delivered antibiotics intravenously. The veterinarians decided to run the thin tube through a large black hose, which they secured to her arm with a long cast. On Oct. 1, a second surgery, by the zoo's veterinary staff, was performed in order to drain a smaller abscess.
Finally, after four weeks in the medical center, she was given a green light to return to the Congo exhibit at the beginning of this month.
Though most visitors don't realize it, the zoo has three troops of gorillas, only two of which are on public view at any given time. Holli's troop includes Zuri, a silverback who is her closest companion and the father of their daughter, Sufi, also part of the troop, and four other females. While Holli was being treated, they remained "backstage" in a large enclosure.
For her safety, the zoo placed her only with Zuri, on the male gorilla's 30th birthday. "He's a mature animal and won't be engaged in roughhousing," Breheny said.
"He was like, 'Yes, she's back,'" said Colleen McCann, the zoo's curator of mammals, watching the two lounge in a pen out of public view.
Zoo officials say Holli will be gradually integrated with the entire troop and eventually placed back on exhibit.
Now they just need to get Holli to take her antibiotics. Freed of the catheter, she was spitting out the pills. So far, only one trick has worked: Keepers chop each pill into tiny bits. They then extract the peanuts from the ends of 15 or so peanut shells, sandwich the medication between peanut halves, then slip them back in the shells. Kathy D'Andrea, a junior wild animal keeper, came up with the idea. "She's always loved peanuts," D'Andrea said of Holli.
"The trick is to keep it looking intact, so she doesn't think the shell has been touched."
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