Bird Update 3

That poor little guy!

We went back for Beefy's second shot on March 13 and nearly lost him. Apparently his little liver was not producing clotting agents the way it should have been, and he just bled and bled. The vet finally got it under control and I brought the little guy back home. That'd be the bird, not the vet. Three days later, when I went to give him his meds, he fled and gently bumped into a window frame, which reopened his wound. Yikes!

No more shots for him...back to antibiotics in liquid suspension, only this one he did not tolerate well. They made him vomit (of course) and lose his voice for hours, but still when it was time to take them, he swallowed them down as best he could. He's such a little trooper, but it was heartbreaking to make him so very miserable twice every day for those two weeks.

He seemed to be improving, but last Tuesday (a belated happy April Fool's Day to all) when I got home from work, Beefy was so bedraggled that I took him for an emergency visit to the vet. No, the vet said, I wasn't overreacting; the bird looked the worst the vet had seen him. Long story short: two days in a little cubicle with pure oxygen. He's breathing a lot better now.

He wasn't tolerating the liquid meds well, and shots were out of the question since his frightful hemorrhagic episode: we were nearly out of options. Antibiotics in his drinking water seemed the only thing left, but it's the least controllable, since one can't be sure of how much he'll drink on a given day. Nonetheless, after a week on that, he seems to be doing well, with more energy than he's had in, oh, months.

The course of treatment for his bug lasts a minimum of 45 days, and we started (with the right antibiotic) on the sixth of March, so this will go on until at least the 20th of April. With all of his setbacks, probably longer. Of course, I run out of drugs early next week, so I suppose we'll be seeing the vet for a progress check soon. Fingers crossed.