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[latrine]

Hi guys.. just got a call this morning from my brother, Tyler has a prolapsed Cloaca again.  Of course it's sunday and none of the freaking 'we can respond to any emergency for any pet' stupid veterinary 'hospitals' have an avian vet available so we have to go all the way to Cornell hospital in Ithaca, NY..  It IS the best, I guess but they nearly killed my macaw once when they accidentally gave us the wrong medication so I never went back there.. they also saved my cockatoo, years earlier,  who was near death with major zinc poisoning so I guess it was just an accident with the meds..

Anyway, I don't want to put poor Tyler through another surgery..this would be the third one and I had already adjusted his food to what the vet and my research told me could be contributing to the problem.. yet it still happened again.

I just talked to one of the vets.. she's consulting with some of the more experienced folks there to see if, with his age, his other issues.. etc.. if we should try again or not, in their opinion, but it's still up to me.
The poor little guy walks on balled up fists because his feet/legs hurt him so much, even with the supplements and glucosamine added to his food, his heated perch and the soft ramps I built him to get around easier.. the people who had him before me must have just been.. horrible to him. It looks like he broke both of his legs and they never brought him to get anything fixed, or something like that..

I just don't want to keep torturing him with surgery after surgery.. he's 33-34 years old and while they CAN sometimes live to be 80-100 years old, he had a very bad life and diet before coming to me, so more than half his life has been crap. I don't know what to do   I don't even know if I can afford it right now. going in on an emergency on a SUNDAY that's probably 150 right there. Not that it matters.. I will help him regardless.  This just sucks!!!  Why do bad things keep happening.  Surgery sucks.. I don't want to keep hurting him, I HATE surgery I am SICK of it and I'm sure he is too.. and it's very painful, the condition he's in right now..   I dunno what to do..

- Sarah

[RedwoodsMama]

Sarah, I am so sorry to hear about Tyler and I do know how you feel,  I have never owned a bird but I love birds and admire the people that know how to take care of them, I have allways had so many cats and thought it was creuel to torture a poor bird with so many cats around it, wishing it was their next dinner. I know their are some birds that get along fine with other speicies including cats but I think it is better to have them raised together and my cats at least a couple of them have been hunters all their lives, ( now 16 and 14 years old) and I know they could not be 'retrained" not to hunt.
              Even if Tyler has had more than half his life be 'crappy" at least the time with you has brought him good memories and feelings of love. When one of my animals gets sick, I allwalys question why and am I doing something wrong, and worse yet, I hate the idea of letting them go. It is allways a personal decision and from what I have  learned over the past few years in particular is that no self respecting vet will just put an animal"down" unless they really feel their quality of life is very bad or poor, because it goes against everything they have been taught. Vets are trained to save lives at all possible cost, and will not put a healthy or animal that has a good chance to sleep just because of cost or owner request.
                  If Tyler's problem is getting really severe and his outlook is limited, then the vet will consult with other avian experts or vets in that field for more advice. Mayby Tyler is just tired out in his physical body and wants a rest, then again, mayby he just needs another dr. to give him something he did not get before. Each case is different and nobody  but you , Tyler and your Vet can make that call. The fact that birds like him can live a long long time is postive, but just like humans, why do some of us live to be 90 or more, and others of us have short lives that are full of pain , or we die at a very early age?
                All I can say is that I am sending well wishes for both of you and esp that Tyler is as pain free as possible to go through whatever he has to go through and that his recovery if deemed so is quick and complication free. :hhug:It also seems strange that our loved ones, animals of any species as well as ourselves allways seem to have "emergencies" after regular hours and on the weekends! That I still find strange and must be connected to a built in internal clock that says, reach in your pocketbook, cause it is time for stress, stress stress.It is like our early ancestors who go out to gather some berries or roots, and meet a Saber Tooth Cat on the Way, the "flight or Fight response" kicks in and in my case it would be flight, run run or get eaten. today we do not have the Saber Tooth Cat, just everything else to stress us out to the max!  Good Luck, know you are a good mom to Tyler, and I am thinking of you both. Just go with your gut feelings on what to do, and then why not ask Tyler...he will give you the answer. :             RWM

[Talon]

Wow, Latrine! I'm sorry for both of you. I don't have any advice to give that would really help you other than to put yourself in Tyler's feathers. I can remember watching my mom go downhill. When it was happening I was numbed from watching for years, now I'm numbed by the simple passage of time. I lost her seventeen years ago when I was just thirteen. There was a point where she weighed ninety pounds and had to sleep on an air bed because she had no body fat to cushion her bones. Even at age eleven I found myself just thinking, when will this end? To this day I don't know how I got through that. She died at forty seven from complications from diabetes after doctors put in a hemo-dialysis shunt in her shoulder.
Anyway sorry about the story. I really hope things work out for the best.
Talon

[Crewella]

Oh no, I'm so sorry Sarah.  All I can offer is the fact that Tyler won't feel the way you do about surgery, as they just don't have the burden of dwelling on things the way we do.  Creatures are much more accepting than we are, but only you will know just how much you can put him through and if it is right to do that.  It's a horrible situation that I was faced with recently myself, and I really feel for both you and Tyler. 

Whatever decision you make I'm sure will be the right one, as I know how much thought and care you will have put into making it.  Either way, it takes courage - and I know you're not lacking in that!

[latrine]

Well we are going to give it one more try.  Tyler is spending the night at Cornell, where he will see the avian specialists tomorrow.
We had thought by now they would be cleaning him up, pushing it back up inside and sewing it in, but the vet called while I was typing this and it turns out that Tyler pulled his cloaca back in by himself so he did not need the minor surgery!!!
 Tomorrow they will be doing bloodwork and probably some testing of the area to find out why he keeps doing this.. make sure there are no little nodules or something.. I can't remember everything she said, I was too happy to hear he's ok.. she said he was doing fine, he was given pain medicine to keep him calm and feeling 'ok' until his surgery and they had a bunch of emergencies come in so when they went back to do him they were like, "uuuhh.. where'd it go?"  so thats wonderful..  she said he is being a very good boy, sitting on his perch and he watched them very studiously as they performed an operation on an egg-bound Python to remove some viable eggs and save her.. I'll bet he was just stoned and thinking he was glad the python wasn't going to eat him.  Apparently he has been very sweet and friendly the entire time, hasn't even cursed at anyone, so he must understand now that the vet is a scary place but a place that helps him.. WOO this is good news!!

The reason we decided to give it one more 'go' was that they are thinking it may be a hormonal thing and are talking about trying a shot of 'Lupron' to shut down his/her hormones.. it's actually kind of funny because I just got that shot to shut down MY ovaries due to a serious issue a month ago and it sucked but hopefully Tyler is a boy and won't get hot flashes and turn into a psychopath..
We decided it was worth it, to try something as simple as that, to just give it a try.. why not give it another try for him.. they are also going to discuss some medication for his daily joint pain..  as I want him feeling better and he is probably going to come back home to stay with us for good as he may need the shots monthly.. bi-monthly.. and just that extra care of knowing when his poops mean he needs to go on a liquidy diet for a few days... I deal with that myself with all of my problems so I have everything here should his poops get hard again.
It's good news so far, it could still be bad news.. if this doesn't work, I am not going to put him through it again because we love him.. but if this helps him then he deserves for us to try it..

When we arrived at my brothers house to pick him up and bring him to the vet, he just looked so relieved.. he was all alone as my brother had to work and my little nephew, who is a real 'boy' and 11 years old had taped a little piece of paper to his carrier with a gorgeous little flower he'd picked taped to it and he wrote something like 'we'll never forget you, we love you little buddy' and he even drew and colored a pink heart..  I've never seen him even TOUCH anything pink before.. SO sweet.. He was really really upset because he'd been told Tyler might not be coming back and it was just so sweet I of course was hysterically crying when I read it... so it was wonderful to be able to tell him on the phone that Tyler had a chance now, he was very relieved and said he was sorry the letter made me cry but he wanted Tyler to know how much he cared.. so sweet!  Ok.. I have to go calm down and stop crying now... thank you all SO MUCH for your support.. I was very upset and faced with that choice.. it's hard as you all know.. thanks
Talon, don't be sorry for sharing your story, talking/typing helps and I am very sorry about what you and your mom had to deal with, it sounds like it was awful.
Thanks guys.. now we just have to cross our fingers they don't find a major problem tomorrow!

- Sarah

[kat]

Hey Sarah,
Thinking of you. Sending well wishes and good thoughts to you and Tyler.  Here's hoping he continues to do well and you have him back home with you soon.
Kat

[Talon]

Thanks for the comforting words, Latrine. I do find- surprisingly- that the more I talk about what happened, the better I feel. Anyway let us know how things go at the vet today.
Sending good wishes to both of you,
Talon

[Crewella]

So pleased it's looking so positive! 

[pirpintine]

poor guy! hope it all works out!   he must be a strong bird to have gone through all this already, so i'm sure hes just as keen to get well as you are.

[kat]

I hope Tyler is doing ok and that they have let him come home.

[latrine]

Hi.. sorry for not responding on this, I let myself lapse on my own medicine and got very ill again myself from that and the stress from Tyler's near-death experience plus we are still waiting for the results of his tiny birdy 'colonoscopy' sample which could be bad news like cancer or herpes but might be fine.. hopefully it's fine..
He is home and the meds are helping, he is back to coaxing my Amazon, Rocky into talking and then immediately telling him to ' SHUTUP'  so he's definitely feeling more himself... he was even chuckling during a movie we watched and scolded Dennis, my bf, when he got one of his favorite songs he loves to whistle wrong.. lol.. he gets SO mad when you mess up whistling a song.. he tells you 'noooooo.. bad... '  I'll try to get some sound clips of the two birds arguing.. it's very funny

We were both so ill when we went to my brothers house to pick up poor Tyler's cage the other day that we forgot half of it! lol.. so the poor guy is stuck in a smaller cage for a few more days until we get back down there but he's ok, so long as he has his heated perch and an Aibo to watch
I still can't believe that fracture in his leg.. the vet said it must have been VERY obvious that he'd broken it and he obviously received absolutely no care for it.. who would do something like that?!  The vet doesn't think it's arthritis, the pain from the fracture, he thinks it may have more to do with the nerves which is wy he walks on balled up fists.. so we will try different meds until we get something that gives him his little feet back.. African Grays are normally more of a 'climbing' bird so it kills me that his feet hurt him so..
We will make him more platforms in the meantime and hope for good news from the doctor.
Thanks for caring guys, it's very much appreciated.

- Sarah

[Talon]

Wow! Poor bird! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you and Tyler.
Talon

[Crewella]

Your birds do make me laugh, Sarah!  It's good to hear Tyler's back to himself, and it would be lovely if the end result of all this was that his feet improved as well! 

[latrine]

Yes, that would be wonderful.. he would love that too.   He is dealing very well with everything now, even wanted to come out of the cage for a few minutes to peek around and wanted a closer look at Thor the Aibo... hehe..  He even wanted a tiny tiny portion of pork that we had for dinner which was fine as the vet said protein wasn't as much of a worry so long as his 'droppings' looked good   So he had his normal gruel/liquified/apple-juicy dinner and then a tiny TINy piece of pork chop...  when I offered it to him, he ripped it out of my fingers, held it in his hand, took a nibble and said  "Ooooohh, Yummy YUMMY!"   so he's coming back.. hehehe.. I will definitely get some recordings so you guys can heard the birds bantering back and forth.

- Sarah