Waiting to see the vet in an hour

I hope you got my PM response; We had our first huge snow here Thursday night into yesterday morning, and we got nearly a foot of snow here in Happy Valley (yeah right, lol)...So of course PennDot was not prepared or ready to go at all, and I didn't see a plow come down College Avenue/Rt. 26, the 12 mile long road running through one end of State College right out the other end, until around 11:00 a.m. yesterday morning, as I was walking down the hill to Burger King to get a cup of coffee because I was out and my fast yet LOW Mitsubishi Lancer Evo was "beached" in my driveway...So all of State College pretty much shut-down from Thursday around 4:00 p.m. until this morning. Yesterday I called my CAV and his office was closed, but I emailed him and got his automated "I'll be back in the office on Monday" email, so he's plowing his huge property (he lives on a farm-type of property in Amish country)...So I am going to call him first thing Monday morning and see if we can figure out how to set this up...

How is Cairo doing now? Is he eating/drinking without vomiting it back up? I'm really thinking that just having you back home is going to at the very least reduce his general stress greatly, and birds and stress don't mix well at all. So hopefully he'll be able to relax, rest peacefully, and have much more of an appetite now that you're home. That in and of itself can make all the difference in the world.

Keep us posted, and PM me once you speak to your Vet about doing a consult with my CAV...***Also, if for whatever reason your Vet has hesitation or a problem with doing a consult with a CAV in the US that she doesn't know, or for whatever reason, by all means encourage her to please do a consult with ANY EXPERIENCED CAV that she fells comfortable speaking to...I'm sure that she probably knows some CAV's if she's been an Exotics Vet for any length of time, or she at least "knows of" some CAV's, so if there is any sort of issue with her speaking to a US doctor or whatever, then try to do your best to get her to agree to do a consult with ANY CAV that she is willing to do so with. While you don't want to "offend" your Vet, nor make her feel incompetent or like you're unappreciative, she knows that she is not an Avian Specialist but rather an Exotics Vet, and that Avian Specialists ONLY see and treat birds/parrots, and that they have much education and training in Avian medicine that she has never had, along with most of them having done Internships and/or Fellowships with other very experienced Avian Specialists. So hopefully she'll be open to doing a consult with an Avian Specialist and understanding that time is of the essence when it comes to birds.

So I'm really uncertain right now.

I came back - Cairo didn't say a word to me, but he immediately woke up and started a huge preening session, which I took as a good sign. We got him to eat a little, then we went to sleep because it was quite late.

This morning, he actually woke up first and flew to his toy table. I gave him his meds (which my partner says he sometimes tries to reject) and probiotics. I gave him his chop sans rice, which he ate a little of, but then my partner pointed out that he prefers it with rice. The moment I added fresh rice, he started chowing down, even happily flinging it around. He ate about 10g then (subsequent feedings today, he ate 10g each time).

He originally wanted to take a nap, but the moment he woke up from it, I put his harness on and got his Birdie GoGo ready. We went out for a quiet walk along our normal route. I (would like to) think it helped. He was looking around and after he warmed up, he started chatting like he normally does outside. By the time, we returned home, he was chatting, preening, and playing with his toys. He did take his usual afternoon nap, but then he was up, preening and playing. He was up for eating again a few more times. We went out again in the evening, and he was acting like his normal self. When we got back, right before dinner and bedtime, he even practiced his new sounds (including his whistling).

It's been a bit of a lifestyle change, though. We offer him food at breakfast time, but if he doesn't want it, we don't force it. We just watch for his signals that he's looking for food, and immediately feed him then. So the timing varied today, but at least he would eat about 10g each time. This also means that his droppings do change is consistency - sometimes they're big, other times alarmingly small; however, all three parts are there and look relatively normal (except now I'm almost certain his body doesn't take well to coconuts). But we've been weighing him throughout the day to make sure he's not dropping weight significantly.

I am glad he's eating and playing and talking. He's just a bit grumpier about certain things, which I might be able to interpret as molting behaviour or as bad associations from his hospitalisation. It's like he's 98% back to normal.

I just wonder if it's sort of artificially created - like me coming back has triggered a behavioural change that's masking his illness or his meds are just hiding symptoms. Not sure. But I'll wait to hear from our vet.

So hard to know what has transpired with Cairo. The roller-coaster of symptoms and lack of definitive diagnosis is maddening. I hope you will find a cause and remedy via offshore lab work and veterinary expertise.

It sounds like he is doing better! My bird HATES it when I leave, so by her standards, it sounds like he is taking it quite well lol. I agree that knowing the cause is important, but I am happy that it sounds like things are improving. If he rejects the meds, I would start giving small amounts at a time and tracking that (until you hit the dosage). You really don't want him missing doses...If you have to get more from the vet (due to wasted doses) then call and explain--they will likely allow you to get more. Mine has always been good about that with my picky cockatoo.

That is maddening, isn't it...It's so hard to tell when they're sick or feeling pain to begin with, and then with you being gone and then coming back it's really hard to tell how he's really feeling, like you said it may be "artificial", but at least the one thing that you can be sure of is that he's not vomiting anything up right now, and hasn't for at least a day or two. Hopefully the excitement of you coming home doesn't "wear-off" and then he regresses again. The fact that he's not vomiting right now and that his droppings are not loose and don't have any bubbles, blood, etc. in them is very good though...

***I'm glad you're weighing him every day, because that is one of the few things that he can't "hide" or mask, if he's losing weight he's losing weight and it will show. I'd track it by writing down the date, time, and weight every day and tracking any patterns in weight loss/gain (make sure you're weighting him at the same time every day, first thing in the morning before he eats or drinks anything is best so you get as accurate a weight as you can). Sometimes I feel like I should weigh each of my guys every day because it's hard to tell how much they're eating, when they're eating, etc. They'll drive you crazy, I swear...Dogs are so much easier, lol...

***To make you feel better, I'll tell you my story from Thursday that I didn't tell anyone yet because I'm so mad at myself for making the mistake that I did that I just didn't want to talk about it...Thursday morning I got the call that we were going to get close to a foot of snow, and by noon it was already bad, so got a day off. I had checked-in here early from my tablet and then came home and was going to start shoveling my driveway so I can get my car out, and I was rushing around in a hurry. I let the birds out of their cages when I got home, and Duff, my Cockatiel, recently moved to my bedroom from the living room because she has "bonded" with my Ringneck Dove, that's another story, but it's a change in our routine. So I let her out of her cage, and she is so easy, she doesn't fly so she just loves to sit on their huge play-gym and play with the toys, and spend time with Dylan, the Dove...Well I fed her some veggie/fruit chop while I went outside to shovel...And I forgot that Kane, my Senegal Parrot who is 4 times Duff's size and who doesn't like any of the other birds, was out eating his chop on top of his cage...And I was outside for a good hour and a half, I took my dogs for a walk before the snow got too bad, and then when I came inside Kane flew right to me and landed on my head..."Where did you come from?"...I had forgotten to put him back in his cage before I went outside, and my bedroom door was open, which normally would be fine, EXCEPT when FOOD is involved...I put Kane on my arm and that's when I saw the blood on his face, not a lot, but enough...I checked him out, at first thought it was juice from the grapes he had, couldn't find anything. Like a moron I cleaned him up, thinking it was just juice from his fruit and his peppers, then i made my lunch...So another hour goes past before I went upstairs to my bedroom...

I walked upstairs to my bedroom to find Duff covered in blood, all over her beak, her face, her belly, legs, feet, everywhere. I can only assume that Kane flew upstairs and went after Duff's chop, and Duff fought back...Somehow Kane managed to bite-off the entire end of one of her toes, the entire toenail and about 1/8"-1/4" of the toe itself, right through the bone. I can only say I'm extremely lucky in that it somehow clotted itself, because the amount of blood all over Duff and the vet-wrap on her play-gym was enough for her to die...Poor Duff, she almost died from breaking a huge blood-feather in her wing a couple of years ago that I had to pull out with a pair of pliers, now she has lost the end of a toe. I washed her up quickly to make sure her toe was the only injury, and to make things worse the end of the toe was hanging-on by a strand of skin/tissue, with the bone exposed on both ends, and the toenail on the end hanging-off, it was just awful...I didn't want to clip it off without any pain medication, so I wrapped her entire foot up in a sterile gauze wrap an called my CAV...office was closed due to the snow storm, of course...I called the 24/7 emergency animal hospital and they were there, so I told them what happened and that I was on my way, thew Duff in a carrier with a blanket over it to protect it from the snow (luckily my car was still thawed-out) and I started my car and let it warm-up as it was in the mid 20's...She was so good, no screaming or anything, and she was actually eating what was left of her fruit when I walked into the bedroom and found the end of her toe hanging! Amazing how resilient they are...And then I had to look at Kane and not be mad at him, though when I brought Duff downstairs with her foot all wrapped-up and put her in the carrier, Kane flew right into his cage, lol...I'm surprised he didn't shut the door behind him, lol...What can you do, this was MY FAULT, not his...

So we got to the Emergency Animal Hospital, which is normally a 10 minutes drive maximum from my house but due to the storm took about 20 minutes because people drive like morons as soon as a snowflake falls...They didn't have an Avian Vet there or on-call, because my CAV is their Avian Vet, lol, and he was already home about 30 minutes away and stuck...So they called him and consulted with him...While I'm extremely lucky to have a 24/7, 365 Emergency Animal Hospital 10 minutes from my house, I hate that every time I have taken either one of the birds or the dogs they immediately walk up and just "take them" away from me and into the back to "assess" them, while I fill out paperwork. I don't like that at all. Then they bring them back to me like 5 minutes later out in the waiting room and they look traumatized. Duff was looking at me like "What the hell was that? Who the hell was that? Where did you go? Where did they take me?"...stuck to her like glue the rest of the time. Basically they had me hold her while they gave her a nerve-block, which she did not like, then they cut the hanging toe-end off, cleaned the "stump" out very well, wrapped it up, and gave her an antibiotic injection along with oral antibiotics and Metacam, and we're going to see my CAV on Monday. She's fine. I'm not.

Just to update,

Ellen and I are in touch, trying to arrange something with our vets.

As for Cairo, he's acting normal again. He did vomit once on Sunday, but apart from that, it's been a steady improvement. At first, he would only take food from me when he wanted food, and it had to be from the spoon. Then he started digging into the bowl himself, then he was fine eating from his 'dining table' (Seedmate knock-off). His talking went from his familiar 'hello' to him practicing again. He slowly became more active again, started taking fewer naps, and began playing with his toys again. The first couple of days, he would just angle as if he wanted to fly, but then would hesitate, so I always stepped in to help him from place to place. Now, he's back to flying from place to place. His strength isn't 100% - he isn't doing circuits of the house. But at least, he went from not engaging with the world to wanting to figure out his puzzle toys.

We had a bit of a scare at first with his droppings looking off and his weight not going back to normal. Our vet even had the tech call us to discuss the photo I sent. They said he just wasn't eating enough. And yeah, the initial days of him back home was tough - he got really picky about his food. He would only eat his fresh chop mixed with hot rice, so we had to make a fresh bowl every time he showed an appetite. He would snap at offers of 'wrong' food, including his favourite bananas. Now he's eating fine, his droppings look normal again, and his weight is looking better.

I'm so thrilled he's feeling better and seemingly back to himself again. I just worry we're missing something. It's like the sword of Damocles now - the threat of this happening again is just dangling over us. I'm hoping, with the vet consult, we can come up with more hypotheses and maybe even an answer.

But I also want to thank all of you guys for your support. I was going a bit hysterical with everything going on, and none of our friends have birds themselves (and my relationship with Cairo feels different than my relationships with my previous horse/rabbit/dog). You guys really helped stabilise me. Definitely reading around here gave me an idea of how grave his initial symptoms were (my partner and I have never had a bird before, so at first he thought the symptoms would pass, but I booked our appointment because of what I read on this forum). And it helped that, in between work sessions, I could check into this thread when awaiting updates from my partner. Just reading your messages helped me not feel so alone, and they also gave me direction on what our next steps should be. So thank you

Wonderful to hear of a good news update!

Glad to hear you all are feeling better now
(parrot and humans)

It is scary thinking this may happen again (or maybe never)- but since we do not know tomorrow: enjoy todays progress.
You guys did so much for him already, it is amazing; true love.

I am so glad things worked out well.
To say I was very concerned over the symptoms your bird was having would be a world class understatement.

The fact that she pulled through is right up there in the miracle department.

I am sure having all the good people here on the PF pulling for you and Ellen helped too.

Thanks for this fantastic update! What a relief.


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I'm so happy to hear that Cairo is showing improvement. We've all been rooting for him, and he's really been a warrior through this whole thing. I hear you about feeling like you're under the Sword of Damocles, but I draw some hope from the fact that your vet will be touching base with Ellen's CAV. Perhaps their collaboration will point us in the direction of an answer to what has been happening.

Please give Cairo a few skritches for me.

Let us hope Cairo continues to improve with no relapse! Having additional veterinary perspective will hopefully give comfort and guidance.