Triumph To Tragedy

This post is going to be long, just a forewarning, so grab a snack.

So the past week was rough. As many of you saw with the adorable pictures I posted a few days ago, I've been babysitting, house sitting, and flock sitting for a friend of mine while they went on vacation. It was definitely more work than I had anticipated and 3 hours of sleep a night was a good night. In addition to my own flock, I had over 30 babies I was hand feeding at my house. Then at her house, I had to care for about 2 dozen breeding pairs and several "strays" that were waiting to find new homes and their actual pets that include about 6 large parrots. All of this on top of working my full time job.

I'm pretty sure my flock was not very happy this week considering how much time they didn't get with me, but they'll live. It was only a week. In fact, the only one who really seems too terribly upset is Chicken. She even took apart her food door and was wandering around the bird room when I got home yesterday. I was actually sort of impressed that she didn't try to mess with any of the babies or anything after she broke out. So she was naughty, but then she was good. I fixed that door to say the least.

Due to how much of a workload I had, we had arranged things to where I only had to go over to her house every other day to check on and work with her flock. Extra food and water dishes were added to cages where they would be needed based on the individual birds, so they could go two days without needing to be filled. She is familiar with which birds needed them because they occasionally go somewhere overnight, and so get the birds ready to be alone for essentially two days.

So I went over there on Saturday and spent a good amount of time. I made sure every bird had fresh food and water, I cleaned cages, and I gave the larger birds that wanted to come out a chance to do so. I am over at her house very often, so I am very familiar with all of her birds, and they are very familiar with me. I am the one person, besides her and her husband, that can actually handle their larger birds. That is one of the reasons I am always the house sitter, because then they can still come out and get interaction or at least get some time on a play stand while I clean cages and stuff so they are out of their cages for a while.

Everyone was good on Saturday, so Sunday I didn't go over there. Instead I stayed at home and slept mostly, to be honest. The lack of sleep had caught up to me in a big way. I set an alarm every 4 hours, I would get up and feed the babies, then go back to sleep. When I finally was more awake, I cleaned all the cages at my house. It is no joke when I say I started dreaming about cleaning cages this week.

So Monday morning, I got up and fed babies before I took my daughter to school. After I dropped her off, I went over to take care of the house and flock. First bird I took out was her YNA, Baby. She wanted me to see if I could get her to play on a play stand for a while every time I was there because she has a bit of a weight problem, but she refused. Instead she thought I was a good play stand. So I grabbed some water dished out of cages and washed them out and refilled them while Baby climbed around my shoulders, meowing at me. She loves to meow, and that seems to be her favorite sound for me.

Then my friend texted me asking how they were doing, so I stopped doing water dishes for a minute to text her back and things got awkward. Baby climbed from my shoulder down onto my arm and started begging for...inappropriate things. My friend thought it was hilarious and said I should feel honored that Baby felt that way about me. I told her it was just wrong. It would be different if it was Chicken, but to be approached like that by someone else's bird is like being hit on by someone else's wife.

So after a while, I put Baby back and went to see if Dottie, her B&G wanted to come out. Now Dottie and I are civil to one another. As long as mom is not around, she will step up for me, and I can take her to the play stand and put her back in her cage, but it is not a touchy feel, cuddle type relationship. Plus, before we even get that far, she has to test me every time. She has to lunge a little bit. I have to tell her to knock it off, that she isn't scary. Basically she plays big tough bird, I play bigger, tougher human, everyone is happy. As long as mom is not there, she isn't going to actually bite me, it is all for show with her. If mom is there, it is a completely different story.

So I go to reach into her cage and she doesn't approach me. No pinning of the eyes, no lunging, no wing spreading. She just sits there calmly and watches me. Alarm bells immediately start ringing. I grab her food bowl and see it hasn't been touched since Saturday. Now that in itself isn't too worrisome. Dottie has been known to get mad that mom left and not eat before. So I ask her to step up, and she does so calmly. More alarms. I set her on the play stand so I can get a better all around look at her, as I'm texting her mom. I couldn't call her, they were in an area where they weren't getting enough signal to support a phone call at the time. I told her something was wrong with Dottie. That she hadn't been eating, and when I looked at her water dish, it didn't look like she had been drinking either. She told me to see if I could get her to take some hand feeding formula. I got her to take a little, but it didn't perk her up at all.

After I gave her the formula, I was trying to really look her over, so I tried to see if she'd let me touch her at all, and she was perfectly fine with me petting not only along her wings, but I got up by her neck, to the top of her head, to the side of her face. I told her mom, something is terribly wrong, she has to go to a vet, and she has to go now.

*I want to point out a few things here, especially to new bird owner about the importance of behavioral changes and the importance of a good pet sitter for your fids. First, a positive behavior change is not always good. Although it seemed like Dottie had a good change in behavior towards me, it was not good for her, because it was not normal. That is the key, it was not normal.

*That is also why when you are asking someone to watch your fids, you should try to ask someone who knows your birds. If I did not know what Dottie's normal personality with me was like, I would not have known anything was wrong. Like I said, she was known not to eat when mom left, so that would have been attributed to that and left at that. She was not sitting fluffed up, she was not on the bottom of her cage. Her poops, other than looking slightly dehydrated also were fairly normal. Her personality had changed drastically, and that is what was so alarming.

So we coordinated things, I set off for the long trip up to the University of Madison's veterinary hospital. I had called ahead to tell them I was coming, and my friend also called and gave them her credit card information and told them that I was authorized to make any medical decisions necessary for Dottie.

When we got up there, we were in a room rather quickly. I took her out of the carrier and she snuggled right up in my lap. Again, this was not normal behavior for her. She was looking to me for comfort. I spoke to the resident vet, and the vet student that were going to be working with her. At first they were just concerned with the dehydration, that maybe since she hadn't been drinking water, she had dehydrated herself, causing her to feel ill. Then they asked if I could get her to stand on a scale.

I set her on the scale, she wasn't happy about it, but she stood long enough for them to get a weight, then she was climbing back up the front of me. Then things went downhill extremely fast. She started coughing and gasping for air. They immediately took her from me and rushed her into the back to put her into an oxygen chamber. The resident vet came back to the room to talk to me, and things were grim. She took a video on her phone of her in the oxygen chamber, and even with oxygen, she was open beak gasping, wings spread, tail bobbing and couldn't seem to catch her breath. The vet said she had a student sitting back just watching her because she wasn't sure if she was even going to survive long enough for her to come talk to me. She said that she thought the stress of everything was making her worse and asked if she had permission to sedate her, hoping that if she was put to sleep, it would eliminate the stress and let her body relax some to help her breath. She also said she may not survive that either but she needed a decision right away. So I said go ahead.

At this point, I'm terrified. I know she is on the brink of death, and I had just made a split second decision that was either going to save her life or end it. This was also the point where I had to tell one of my best friends, while on vacation, that her baby might not make it. I know most of us with multiple fids love them all, but still have that one. The special one. For her, Dottie is that one.

When the vet came back, she said that even sedated, she was struggling to breathe, and that things looked grim. She said she was able to listen with her stethoscope one she was sedated and could hear a heart murmur and her lungs crackling from filling with fluid. Without running any testing, she said her best guess was that Dottie was in heart failure. She also said that at the point she was at, she couldn't run any tests. She was afraid that even doing a blood draw would be more than Dottie's body could handle at that point. That is how sick she actually was, and this was without her even being to the point of sitting fluffed up, or being on the bottom of her cage, or any of the "classic" signs of illness. I cannot stress enough the importance of paying attention to behavioral changes.

She ended up staying overnight. Basically she either would hopefully be strong enough to at least do some testing in the morning, or she probably wouldn't make it through the night. The next morning, I drove down to Chicago to pick my friend up from the airport. She flew home early, hoping if nothing else, to at least be able to tell Dottie good-bye. There were quite a few times she started to loose hope, and I may have been a little harsh with her, but I think it worked. She would say things like she was never going to get to see her again. I flat out said to her, if Dottie is still fighting, then why the hell aren't you?

She ended up being able to get blood work and a CT done. We even were able to bring her home yesterday. She is still not doing well, but at this point all they can really do is observe her. They said that she may be better off being watched at home since she gets so stressed at the clinic. They gave a list of symptoms to watch for, and an email address in case of questions. They even suggested if there is anything concerning, to take video and email to them, and they can say whether it is something she needs to be brought back in for or not. She needs to get a cardio ultrasound, they still think that she has a heart condition, but in order to medicate her, they need to be able to see exactly what is wrong to give the correct medication. Considering the cost of the test, it is going to have to wait a couple of weeks, until the money is available. They said that it should be okay to wait, and it might even be better to see if she builds up some strength before putting her through more stress again.

Oh no, I'm so sorry. It's sounds like she's pulled through a couple of days now. Hopefully that's a good sign. I'm wishing good thoughts for Dottie and your friend.

I'm betting on her. Come on, girl...

Oh wow...Nothing but good thoughts coming to that whole situation!

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Our thoughts are with Dottie this evening.Good quick thinking.

Come on, Dottie!


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Feel better!!!!

C'mon Dottie, you can beat this! She will be in my prayers!

Sending prayers and hugs for poor Dottie and thanks to you for taking the precious time in sending this important message out.

Praying Dottie makes it through this! I stand by what I said before, it is great you are there!! She is in the best hands!

Praying for Dottie's quick recovery and proper diagnosis.

So awful. I'm sorry. Hoping for a miracle.

I dearly hope Dottie will recover and be restored to health and vitality.

Dottie has been improving a little since she's been home. She is eating and drinking on her own. She has also found some of her spunk again and has gotten some of her usual feisty attitude back. She still seems to have occasional balance issues, but nothing like what she had when she was at the vet's so that's also improving. Hoping that either next week, or the week after at the very latest, she will be going back up to the University of Madison to get the cardio workup and hopefully finally get an answer as to what exactly is wrong so she can be started on medication.

OutlawedSpirit said:

Dottie has been improving a little since she's been home. She is eating and drinking on her own. She has also found some of her spunk again and has gotten some of her usual feisty attitude back. She still seems to have occasional balance issues, but nothing like what she had when she was at the vet's so that's also improving. Hoping that either next week, or the week after at the very latest, she will be going back up to the University of Madison to get the cardio workup and hopefully finally get an answer as to what exactly is wrong so she can be started on medication.

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Glad to see improvement, hope this remains a positive trend!

Depending on her cardio results, there is an effective drug to treat heart failure. Pimobendan bought roughly 8 months quality time for my Eclectus, Angel. Other parrots less sick have thrived for years.

FYI, the thread and explanation: http://www.parrotforums.com/general-health-care/63907-heart-disease-cautionary-tale.html

Good luck Dottie! What a good catch on your part, i wouldn't have been able to catch that.

How lucky for your friend they can depend on you <3

I'm dealing with heart disease with my little Alice (she's turning 3 in October). I was an idiot, and decided to wait until my usual vet got back to see if we could get her on some medication. I'm such an idiot. Anyways, she's going to go to a different vet on Monday (I'm such an idiot! As soon as the receptionist told me Dr. Morris was away, I should've made an appointment at a different hospital with Dr. Yee!) to see if we can come up with an appropriate dosage for Pimobendan, and maybe have the fluid in her abdomen tested to see if it is indeed sarcoma, or "just" water belly from heart disease.

I feel really bad for you and your friend, as heart disease seems to come on suddenly with parrots. My eldest male, Charlie, died last July due to an improper diagnosis. He ended up dying from heart failure. It was horrible. Dottie will be in our prayers. Hopefully Pimobendan will help both of our birds!