ktemkin
Strolling the yard
Sorry if this is a bit much to read- it's been one hell of a long day.
This morning, Ada, my 6 month old Cockatiel, started having fairly bad polyuria. Over the course of an hour, she proceeded to urinate once about every five minutes; several of these rounds were without defecation. Other than that, she's asymptomatic- normal behavior, normal eating, nothing out of the ordinary.
I quickly became alarmed by the amount of fluid she was losing- and she didn't appear particularly thirsty. Worse, the pedialyte my fiancée had previously purchased just-in-case was a new formula with added zinc- so we weren't going to risk using it.
We called our vet's office, but our usual avian vet was out performing surgery. We brought Ada to one of her co-workers, who wasn't an avian vet.
Unfortunately, the vet's office was a good ten degrees colder than our house or car. I tried to ease Ada into it, but she still was visibly puffed and shaking. The vet agreed that we should perform diagnostic bloodwork- our poor, cold bird definitely looked sick.
Our vet could take blood, but she couldn't process it. She said she would have to send it out to Cornell Veterinary, and as it was 4PM, she wouldn't get the results back until tomorrow. If we drove the couple of hours to Cornell, however, she promised they'd run the tests right away.
We paid for the checkup, stopped home to get some water for Ada, and headed to Cornell.
--
Cornell lacks any signs whatsoever directing you to their veterinary hospital. The university information desk wastes an hour of our time giving us directions to the wrong building.
It's now something along the lines of 7PM. Inside the hospital, it's about 60 degrees, which is way too cold for poor Ada; our house has been about 82.
They proceed to bring her into an exam room; A graduate student acts as the nurse and checks her out. We point out that it's much too cold for Ada, and the nurse allows us to put her into an incubator, which only brings the temperature up slightly- to 65 degrees.
We wait like that for another couple of hours, with Ada still subjected to that unhealthy chill. No one's around, so we can't even ask if she can wait in the warm car. We were told there was medical emergency with another bird, and the doctor is attending that. (I pray that other bird is okay.)
The doctor finally comes at about 9PM, and determines that Ada is definitely moderately dehydrated. She's administered 4ml of fluid-electrolyte mix under the skin to combat the dehydration. When she returns, her legs are absolutely soaked with disinfectant- and she's now shivering and shaking like crazy.
She looks absolutely miserable, and is barely lucid. I actually have to hold my poor baby to my chest and in between my hands just to keep her warm. As I wait for the doctor to return, I begin to seriously worry that their air conditioning might kill her.
The doctor then tells us he can't run the blood work- the lab had closed while he was attending the other bird's emergency. The doctor says she seems very stable, and he doesn't think it's a terrible risk to wait another day for the blood work.
The doctor suggests they keep Ada overnight and perform the blood tests in the morning- but, after talking it over with my fiancée, we decline. We decide we'd rather have our own vet take blood, even if it means we won't see results until the afternoon. Better that than to have her freeze to death trying to rapidly acclimate to the cold.
Ada seemed absolutely fine for the car ride back- as soon as she was out of that cold, she perked right up. She's sleeping now, having been kept up far too late, in my opinion. Poor baby spent something something like 10 hours in her small car carrier.
---
The real question is, what do I do to help her recover from the whole experience? I'm really worried about her exposure to the freezing climate of the animal hospital.
Do you think I did the right thing, bringing her back home?
I'm exhausted. I've tried so hard to protect her- I just took a day off of work, spent hundreds of dollars and drove several hundred miles just hoping I'd help her get better. I didn't even really know for sure that she was sick- I just knew I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do everything in my power to get her better.
This morning, Ada, my 6 month old Cockatiel, started having fairly bad polyuria. Over the course of an hour, she proceeded to urinate once about every five minutes; several of these rounds were without defecation. Other than that, she's asymptomatic- normal behavior, normal eating, nothing out of the ordinary.
I quickly became alarmed by the amount of fluid she was losing- and she didn't appear particularly thirsty. Worse, the pedialyte my fiancée had previously purchased just-in-case was a new formula with added zinc- so we weren't going to risk using it.
We called our vet's office, but our usual avian vet was out performing surgery. We brought Ada to one of her co-workers, who wasn't an avian vet.
Unfortunately, the vet's office was a good ten degrees colder than our house or car. I tried to ease Ada into it, but she still was visibly puffed and shaking. The vet agreed that we should perform diagnostic bloodwork- our poor, cold bird definitely looked sick.
Our vet could take blood, but she couldn't process it. She said she would have to send it out to Cornell Veterinary, and as it was 4PM, she wouldn't get the results back until tomorrow. If we drove the couple of hours to Cornell, however, she promised they'd run the tests right away.
We paid for the checkup, stopped home to get some water for Ada, and headed to Cornell.
--
Cornell lacks any signs whatsoever directing you to their veterinary hospital. The university information desk wastes an hour of our time giving us directions to the wrong building.
It's now something along the lines of 7PM. Inside the hospital, it's about 60 degrees, which is way too cold for poor Ada; our house has been about 82.
They proceed to bring her into an exam room; A graduate student acts as the nurse and checks her out. We point out that it's much too cold for Ada, and the nurse allows us to put her into an incubator, which only brings the temperature up slightly- to 65 degrees.
We wait like that for another couple of hours, with Ada still subjected to that unhealthy chill. No one's around, so we can't even ask if she can wait in the warm car. We were told there was medical emergency with another bird, and the doctor is attending that. (I pray that other bird is okay.)
The doctor finally comes at about 9PM, and determines that Ada is definitely moderately dehydrated. She's administered 4ml of fluid-electrolyte mix under the skin to combat the dehydration. When she returns, her legs are absolutely soaked with disinfectant- and she's now shivering and shaking like crazy.
She looks absolutely miserable, and is barely lucid. I actually have to hold my poor baby to my chest and in between my hands just to keep her warm. As I wait for the doctor to return, I begin to seriously worry that their air conditioning might kill her.
The doctor then tells us he can't run the blood work- the lab had closed while he was attending the other bird's emergency. The doctor says she seems very stable, and he doesn't think it's a terrible risk to wait another day for the blood work.
The doctor suggests they keep Ada overnight and perform the blood tests in the morning- but, after talking it over with my fiancée, we decline. We decide we'd rather have our own vet take blood, even if it means we won't see results until the afternoon. Better that than to have her freeze to death trying to rapidly acclimate to the cold.
Ada seemed absolutely fine for the car ride back- as soon as she was out of that cold, she perked right up. She's sleeping now, having been kept up far too late, in my opinion. Poor baby spent something something like 10 hours in her small car carrier.
---
The real question is, what do I do to help her recover from the whole experience? I'm really worried about her exposure to the freezing climate of the animal hospital.
Do you think I did the right thing, bringing her back home?
I'm exhausted. I've tried so hard to protect her- I just took a day off of work, spent hundreds of dollars and drove several hundred miles just hoping I'd help her get better. I didn't even really know for sure that she was sick- I just knew I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do everything in my power to get her better.
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