This is partly about my flock but also off topic relating to my personal health. This year has been hands down the worst year of my life for frequent ambulance rides to the ER and life threatening episodes.
First I want to say that I know there are people who may judge me and that is your right to do if that's how you feel I respect that. I will ask you to consider unless you have had asthma know someone who does or been water boarded that you try to understand the choices I was forced to make.
I have known that cockatoos and truly powder down birds were too much for my asthma, I can't have shedding dogs, and I can't have cats at all. There are types of food that I love that I cannot eat. I am an artist who loves to work in oil paints and do that completely solvent free to take into account my very sensitive lungs. My issues with my breathing really started in my late 30s I am now almost 50. Truthfully, much of it may have been exposure to parrot dust and not wearing any mask protection for so many years when I worked for my breeder friend, she was older and I did all the cleaning and maintenance of the space. Even after I began my career in social work I helped her out. After that for years I continued to do re-hab, hand feeding and fostering/boarding. Why this so adversely effected my lungs and doesn't with others working with parrots I don't know. I have had to realize my limits and live within them. Eclectus have never bothered me at all of course because they really don't produce any dust so I have pretty much stuck with them and I adore them.
However, I have always missed Karma the older YNA that I had for 15 yrs before he died in my arms. So this last year I got the baby YNA Mystic, I didn't seem to be having any issues. Then came my hybrid Mojo, still things seemed okay, Brady (YNA) I wasn't looking but she chose me in such a similar fashion as Karma that I felt she needed me. Belle came about because people from my husbands work needed to re home their bird after having her/him for over 10 yrs that was Belle.
I have had to find homes for all the amazon's except Brady who I am going to do all that I can to be able to keep because of how bonded she is to me. The episodes with my breathing escalated to dangerous situations shortly after Belle got here. I had assumed Belle was a girl because of the none aggressive manner she had and her posturing. Once quarantine was over and Belle got a first time look at the other amazons HE lost his mind! I haven't seen aggression like that since my days of dealing with breeding pairs. He wanted to get to and KILL Brady and now suddenly viciously attacked and I mean launched himself at you and would bite repeatedly! Walking by his cage he would attack the bars!
So I sent in a dna kit to confirm that yes he was in fact a HE! I spoke to people about it and really he was kept like a breeder by the previous owners except he didn't have a mate. He was never taken out of the cage because their pit bull would try to kill him and the wife was afraid because when he was a baby he had smacked into a window trying to fly so they just left him in his cage and any interaction was between the bars so basically that is the life of a breeder. I have seen enough to know that this was going to be hard wired in him to react badly around the other birds so Belle ended up going to a very good breeder who had a wonderful female looking for a mate. Upon meeting her he fell in love I am told and they are very attentive to each other.
I let things settle after Belle found a home and things continued to go from bad to worse with my breathing. By this time the weather had grown cooler so the house was more shut up. Now I had two very good air filters but it didn't seem to be helping. I had gotten to the point that I was on tank oxygen 24/7, could barely do anything without risking a full blown attack and had been on high doses of Prednisone 60 mg and still couldn't get it under control.
I couldn't work, I could barely take care of myself let alone everyone else!
After talking it over with my husband we decided finding great homes for the babies (YNA and Hybrid Mystic and Mojo) had to be the next step.
I cried constantly. I didn't care about money I was looking for perfect homes. It took a while but many visits here with the families and me seeing their place they both found great homes I am happy to say.
I did try to make myself feel better by thinking that I had hand fed them and socialized them into wonderfully behaved young babies for a family to love same as I did when I raised parrots when I was younger.
Contemplating Brady was too much I was crushed, the depression I was in was very dark. I have always been the kind of person that feels that life was only worth it if you had a quality of life, at this point I had none.Recovering from all the attacks, finding homes for the babies, not being able to work (paint) which brings me such joy had just drained me.
Picture me sitting on a chair in the kitchen attached to an oxygen tank cutting up chop for the eclectus and barely being able to do it.
Hard choices are always hard but when it's do this or you may die they really stop being choices and become something you have to do. I still couldn't bring myself to even talk about letting go of Brady. My husband would kindly start the conversation and I would go into melt down so we decided we would do everything first that we could for me to be able to hang on to just one of the amazons. We bought yet another air filter this one being a top of the line, very expensive, high capacity Austin Air. We bath Brady every other day my husband cleans her cage. (I still do everything for the eclectus without problems) so he is more than happy to help knowing what it means to me to be able to keep Brady.
My health has really turned around, now I am off the oxygen, even at night. I am not using my nubulizer or my rescue inhaler and everything with keeping just Brady seems to be back to what it was before. I am working again as well! This was a hard lesson for me, I know I could not have known how bad it would get but I still felt tremendous guilt and shame over having to re-home the other zon's. I want to publicly thank Wendy for being such a understanding comfort for me through all this. I really felt like I was going to lose it at times and I know it would have been that much harder without your care and concern for my health!
So I thank you if you have read this far...if you think I am awful, I'm sorry, believe me more than I can ever say. If you understand the pain and sacrifice I felt making these decisions than thank you for your care.
First I want to say that I know there are people who may judge me and that is your right to do if that's how you feel I respect that. I will ask you to consider unless you have had asthma know someone who does or been water boarded that you try to understand the choices I was forced to make.
I have known that cockatoos and truly powder down birds were too much for my asthma, I can't have shedding dogs, and I can't have cats at all. There are types of food that I love that I cannot eat. I am an artist who loves to work in oil paints and do that completely solvent free to take into account my very sensitive lungs. My issues with my breathing really started in my late 30s I am now almost 50. Truthfully, much of it may have been exposure to parrot dust and not wearing any mask protection for so many years when I worked for my breeder friend, she was older and I did all the cleaning and maintenance of the space. Even after I began my career in social work I helped her out. After that for years I continued to do re-hab, hand feeding and fostering/boarding. Why this so adversely effected my lungs and doesn't with others working with parrots I don't know. I have had to realize my limits and live within them. Eclectus have never bothered me at all of course because they really don't produce any dust so I have pretty much stuck with them and I adore them.
However, I have always missed Karma the older YNA that I had for 15 yrs before he died in my arms. So this last year I got the baby YNA Mystic, I didn't seem to be having any issues. Then came my hybrid Mojo, still things seemed okay, Brady (YNA) I wasn't looking but she chose me in such a similar fashion as Karma that I felt she needed me. Belle came about because people from my husbands work needed to re home their bird after having her/him for over 10 yrs that was Belle.
I have had to find homes for all the amazon's except Brady who I am going to do all that I can to be able to keep because of how bonded she is to me. The episodes with my breathing escalated to dangerous situations shortly after Belle got here. I had assumed Belle was a girl because of the none aggressive manner she had and her posturing. Once quarantine was over and Belle got a first time look at the other amazons HE lost his mind! I haven't seen aggression like that since my days of dealing with breeding pairs. He wanted to get to and KILL Brady and now suddenly viciously attacked and I mean launched himself at you and would bite repeatedly! Walking by his cage he would attack the bars!
So I sent in a dna kit to confirm that yes he was in fact a HE! I spoke to people about it and really he was kept like a breeder by the previous owners except he didn't have a mate. He was never taken out of the cage because their pit bull would try to kill him and the wife was afraid because when he was a baby he had smacked into a window trying to fly so they just left him in his cage and any interaction was between the bars so basically that is the life of a breeder. I have seen enough to know that this was going to be hard wired in him to react badly around the other birds so Belle ended up going to a very good breeder who had a wonderful female looking for a mate. Upon meeting her he fell in love I am told and they are very attentive to each other.
I let things settle after Belle found a home and things continued to go from bad to worse with my breathing. By this time the weather had grown cooler so the house was more shut up. Now I had two very good air filters but it didn't seem to be helping. I had gotten to the point that I was on tank oxygen 24/7, could barely do anything without risking a full blown attack and had been on high doses of Prednisone 60 mg and still couldn't get it under control.
I couldn't work, I could barely take care of myself let alone everyone else!
After talking it over with my husband we decided finding great homes for the babies (YNA and Hybrid Mystic and Mojo) had to be the next step.
I cried constantly. I didn't care about money I was looking for perfect homes. It took a while but many visits here with the families and me seeing their place they both found great homes I am happy to say. I did try to make myself feel better by thinking that I had hand fed them and socialized them into wonderfully behaved young babies for a family to love same as I did when I raised parrots when I was younger.
Contemplating Brady was too much I was crushed, the depression I was in was very dark. I have always been the kind of person that feels that life was only worth it if you had a quality of life, at this point I had none.
Recovering from all the attacks, finding homes for the babies, not being able to work (paint) which brings me such joy had just drained me. Picture me sitting on a chair in the kitchen attached to an oxygen tank cutting up chop for the eclectus and barely being able to do it.
Hard choices are always hard but when it's do this or you may die they really stop being choices and become something you have to do. I still couldn't bring myself to even talk about letting go of Brady. My husband would kindly start the conversation and I would go into melt down so we decided we would do everything first that we could for me to be able to hang on to just one of the amazons. We bought yet another air filter this one being a top of the line, very expensive, high capacity Austin Air. We bath Brady every other day my husband cleans her cage. (I still do everything for the eclectus without problems) so he is more than happy to help knowing what it means to me to be able to keep Brady.
My health has really turned around, now I am off the oxygen, even at night. I am not using my nubulizer or my rescue inhaler and everything with keeping just Brady seems to be back to what it was before. I am working again as well! This was a hard lesson for me, I know I could not have known how bad it would get but I still felt tremendous guilt and shame over having to re-home the other zon's. I want to publicly thank Wendy for being such a understanding comfort for me through all this. I really felt like I was going to lose it at times and I know it would have been that much harder without your care and concern for my health!
So I thank you if you have read this far...if you think I am awful, I'm sorry, believe me more than I can ever say. If you understand the pain and sacrifice I felt making these decisions than thank you for your care.
