Baby Alice is Gone

Little Alice was the sweetest little sky blue clearwing budgie. I adopted her when she was only 2 or 3 months old. She'd been rescued from an animal hoarder. When I got her, she suffered from severe PTSD. She's never been healthy, but several months ago, she developed heart disease. She would've been 3 years old this Halloween.

Long story short, I took her to a different vet today, Dr. Yee. I hoped she could be put on medicine to help her breathe, help her heart, and help her swollen tummy. Dr. Yee was worried she might have trouble breathing after handling her, so she brought her to the back room to perform the examination in case something went wrong. She extracted some fluid from her tummy, and it was blood. Then she weighed her, but she started getting upset, so she put her in the oxygen chamber to rest. I'd warned her that she sometimes goes limp when she's stressed, so she thought she might've just been going into her usual, stress-induced, catatonic state. But she saw that Alice was closing her eyes, so she took her out immediately and performed CPR. Alice never woke up.

Dr. Yee came into the room after all this and told me how sorry she was, but that Alice's heart gave out, and that she tried everything she could, and then she hugged me. She says I'm one of the clinic's youngest clients, and that I knew far more than any of their other clients, and that I took great care of my babies. She said that I gave Alice the best life possible. She said Alice's liver was extremely enlarged, and it was pushing all of her organs and stuff down.

I held Alice and snuggled with her on the way home. I told her she was a beautiful little girl, and that she was going to be happy in heaven, where her body is far better than it's ever been. She can fly, eat whatever she wants, shred stuff, play with toys, and that she can see Sam, Nova, Joey, Maria, Scarlet, Charlie, and Simon. She only knows Charlie and Simon, but now she gets to meet the others and play with them. She doesn't struggle to breathe anymore, or anything. She gets to forage and do whatever the heck she wants to do without pain or fear. Her little body's going to have an autopsy performed on it by Dr. Morris, and I want him to take pictures, keep some of her organs if he wants, and whatever else needs to be done to help learn more about heart disease so other birds can be helped.

I'm so very sorry to hear about your loss of Alice . She is no longer in pain. May you be comforted by good memories.

Thanks . I'm going to really miss her. I remember the first time she went to see Dr. Morris. She got out of his hand and flew around the exam room. She flew onto my dad's arm and chomped down, grinding her jaws in opposite directions to inflect the most pain. You should've seen the welt she left . She also did a number on Dr. Morris. I was quite proud of the pain she caused.

Oh gosh! This is hard! You have me in tears! Such a beautiful baby!

Everyone's shocked. The thought of her dying today never crossed our minds. I mean, Dr. Yee was completely shocked. The only reason she performed the exam near the oxygen chamber was just in case the stress caused her to hyperventilate or something. I knew she wasn't doing well, but she was still perching, flying a bit, eating, and she even played a little last night. I guess her heart was far worse than anyone imagined. I specifically requested an appointment with Dr. Yee, as she was the only other vet besides Morris that I trust. She examined Ju several months ago when he was vomiting everywhere. In the end, I figured out on my own that Ju was just overreacting to sweet potato and some seed, but she was great with him.

Dr. Yee took plenty of preventative measures and knew how bad stress was for Alice, and I think she really tried to save her. I wasn't there, but I know she tried really hard. I've accepted the fact that it was just time for Alice to discard her young, yet crippled, body.

I cried for several hours, then I laid on the couch with a cold facecloth on my eyes for a couple of hours. It's selfish for me to wish she was still alive, as she was clearly struggling just to pump blood around her body. She was extremely underweight, and she'd been having more and more trouble fighting to stay alive.

Last night, she ate some millet from my hand. She was feeling quite tired yesterday, so I held a broccoli leaf in front of her face to nibble on, and she seemed to enjoy it. Last night, she went over to the glass pie plate filled with water, hopped up onto the rim, and took a drink. She seemed quite happy about the yummy water.

I put her little body in the aviary for a bit so the others might understand that she wasn't coming back. Most of them didn't understand, but I think they all understood on some level that she was gone. I just didn't want them to wait for her to come back from the vet, not knowing what had happened. Noah clearly knew something was wrong, and seemed afraid when I held her in my hand. He walked over nervously and grabbed at her wing, poked her in the tail, and bit at her leg.

(Sorry for double-posting!)

Dr. Morris did an autopsy, and it turns out she had ovarian cancer. He told Dad that she'd died from blood loss, and that it would have been very quick. I always felt her tummy problems (she's had this problem since she was less than a year old) might be hormone related. Apparently, the tumour was the size of a loonie. For those who don't know, loonies are Canadian $1 coins. Dr. Morris doesn't know how the heck it fit inside of her. He stayed late to do the autopsy.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention that I'm going to phone Dr. Yee tomorrow to know I don't blame her or anything. I don't want her to feel bad.

Oh so sorry to hear this sad news about Alice. As I have done in the past , a donation in Alice's name was made to Cornell's Vet school , to be used on parrot based research and programs .

Thank you so much! Not only did Alice die a quick, hardcore death (can you believe she was still flying around with a tumour almost the size of her head!?), but you did something so amazing to honour her death! Salty must be so proud to have you as a father ! I don't want to sound flippant or anything, but you have no idea how proud I am of Alice.

Again thanks so much everyone! Alice was tough as nails, and you got to admit, she died an amazing death. I'm going to work on training everyone to be weighed. Don't know how it'll go, but it'll be nice to keep track of everyone's weight. Not that early detection would've helped Alice all that much.

She had a wonderful life with you


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And she passed LOVED and treasured.
A great gift.

I am saddened by Alice's untimely passing and share my deepest condolences. You work so hard with your birds and provide such wonderful care during their times of illness. No doubt Dr. Yee was as careful and best prepared as possible.

I'm so very sorry for your loss of sweet little Alice. Thank you for giving her a happy home and letting her know she was loved.

Thanks everyone . I think I'm handling her death better than I did Charlie's. Then again, it took him 2 days to die, and it was clear that he was scared and wasn't ready. Alice's death was quick, and neither she nor I had to decide whether or not it was time for her to let go. She was a brave, stubborn little girl, and I doubt she would've just allowed herself to pass on. Had she not died yesterday, I'm sure she'd still be alive a month from now, more tumour than budgie, still fighting even though any other bird in her situation would've accepted death.

This was really the best case scenario. I don't know if I could've dealt with inevitably having her euthanized, and I don't think that she would've made the decision for herself. Both Dr. Yee and Dr. Morris, and my Mom, said that it would've been very quick. Based on my understanding of things, she probably would've felt light headed and really sleepy. Before she even had the chance to die, she probably passed out from the sudden drop in blood pressure. Then, once she was unconscious, her heart would've stopped.

When I first took her home, she was terrified of humans. But the past several months, she's been eating from my hand and has been very relaxed. She was a sweet girl, but she also had a bit of a devilish streak . When she was feeling naughty, she'd sneak up on Ziggy then run at him, trying to bite his toes. There was this other goofy thing she'd do sometimes. Sometimes, she would suddenly start doing her alarm call in a panic. Her eyes would go wild, and she'd flatten her feathers against her body. Then, she'd suddenly fluff up a bit, and start making this goofy "laughing" vocalizations, while bobbing her head up and down a bit. I've never heard any bird make that vocalizations before. It was as if she found it amusing to make everyone think something was wrong.

I've just seen this! Oh dear little Alice. Budgies are so special, she was a fighter. I'm so sorry to hear this news.

Thanks . She was definitely one tough bird.

On another note, Dad just brought her body back from autopsy. I wasn't there, but apparently Dr. Morris told Dad that Alice was a boy? I'm going to have to ask him about that when I bring Ria in to have her nose and eye poked at, but I'm confident Alice is a girl. Both Ziggy and Pollo had crushes on her (which doesn't mean anything, since as far as I'm concerned, budgies tend to be pansexual/bisexual). Furthermore, when she was healthy, her cere was tan in colour. It was never as intense of a brown as my other girls, but still. Furthermore, her cere turned blue a few weeks ago due to her cancer. When males have testicular cancer, their ceres turn brown, like Ju's does (the colour of his cere fluctuates because of testicular cancer). However, female budgies who have ovarian cancer turn blue. She was also more reserved, as females tend to be. Wait, apparently she had kidney cancer and not gonadal cancer. I have no clue why her cere changed colours, then.

Although, there's a chance she could've been a ZZ-female. With humans, males tend to be XY, and females tend to be XX. However, some individuals who identify as female, and whose doctor deemed "anatomically" female, have XY chromosomes. They have a pseudo-vagina, and are by all means female. They just happen to have XY chromosomes and undescended testicals. In such cases, many don't realize they're an XY-female until they go to the doctor complaining of abdominal pain or not menstruating. After performing x-rays, it's learned that they have testicals. It is strongly encouraged that XY-females have their testicals removed, as they are at a very high risk of getting testicular cancer.

Anyways, female birds are ZW, and males are ZZ (the opposite of mammals). If she is a ZZ-female, that would maybe explain some of her odd social behaviours. Would not explain why her cere changed colours, though, since kidneys are involved in hormonal stuff.

Apparently, Dr. Morris went back to check if she was female. Dad didn't ask any questions, but it sounds to me like she might've had testicals instead of ovaries. Whether or not she had testicals, she was definitely a female. Whether or not she had ZZ or ZW chromosomes doesn't matter. I mean, our female chihuahua has both a vagina and some sort of pseudo-penis.