10 year old male cockatiel - Cancer

[Birdasaur9]

Hey everyone,

So I'm new here, obviously! I'm in Australia and I've raised and loved my cockatiel for nearly 10 years. He's a lovely white-faced boy.

I found this place and joined for unfortunate reasons. My lil boy isn't doing great and I'm in the "making a choice" position. I don't want him to suffer, but I also don't want to be premature... I want him to have all the chances he can.

If anyone has any advice on how to handle this, I would very much appreciate it. I just want to make sure to do the best by him since he can't just tell me what he wants.

My boys symptoms are much like the post I've tagged below, but I can't message so I'm not able to ask whether the medication helped. I don't want him to suffer, but I also don't want to make such a permanent decision if there is a chance for him.
My avian vet came to the same conclusion of probably cancer, and no other medications seem to have helped. He's had blood and X-Rays taken. But my vet still says they can't directly confirm it without more intense procedures he may not survive through as he is already only about 68g and exhausted - He has been going up and down in weight for about a month since treatment started. They can't test for everything, particularly for the cancer they suspect, but the time it could take to receive the results may be too late any way.

How do I handle this? What if it's not cancer and it's something treatable?

Urgent - Cockatiel possibly has cancer. | Avian Avenue Parrot Forum

 

[sunnysmom]

I don't know if that poster is still around.... @Jsenia23 ?

I am sorry about your bird. I don't have experience with a bird with cancer. Hopefully others can answer with better advice. To me, it comes down to quality of life. Is the bird in pain? Eating? Still mobile? Can the vet do bloodwork or no? 68 grams sounds thin. What was his original weight? What medications has the vet tried?

 

[Birdasaur9]

I don't know if he is. He's struggling to breathe, but he still wants snuggles and is climbing around. He has periods of breathlessness and then seems fine. He doesn't seem to act any different on the Meloxicam. He is eating/drinking, and doesn't appear to be vomiting any more, but he's been in and out of care because he was eating intermittently and not gaining weight, even with crop feeds they only got him up a few grams to the 68g.

He was about 90 - 100g normally. But not overweight. He developed a swollen crop, progessively lost his voice, vomiting, and started losing weight. The first blood work and faeces checks didn't seem to turn up anything serious - my vet said he had signs of having had an infection - but when the crop wouldn't go down a foreign body was suspected, they operated and a bunch of gunk came out but no foreign body. This was over the past 2 months. He was at a steady 80g for a week after surgery, but then dropped a few more before I had the vet take him in again, and he stayed at around 75g, but then started dropping when home again.

He has had:
Meloxicam
Cerenia
Flagyl
Augmentin
F10 on a nebuliser
Amphoteracin B

My vet can't do full bloodwork, but they said if they send it away it might be a wait and if it is cancer there isn't anything they can do, and he will probably pass before they get the results back or they can do a surgical look to check the tissue... which he may not survive any way.

I don't want my hope on a miracle to ruin what little life he may have left, so I don't know what to do. I hate the uncertainty. It would be easier if it was "Yep, he has cancer for sure." and not "Probably cancer, based on :_____ but we can't 100% confirm without risking his life or it'll take too long to find out any way."

 

[Birdasaur9]

I posted in 911 and didn't get much assistance, so I'm going to ask my questions here and hopefully someone can help me. Thankyou!

Hey everyone,

So I'm new here, obviously! I'm in Australia and I've raised and loved my cockatiel for nearly 10 years. He's a lovely white-faced boy.

I found this place and joined for unfortunate reasons. My lil boy isn't doing great and I'm in the "making a choice" position. I don't want him to suffer, but I also don't want to be premature... I want him to have all the chances he can.

If anyone has any advice on how to handle this, I would very much appreciate it. I just want to make sure to do the best by him since he can't just tell me what he wants.

My boys symptoms are much like the post I've tagged below, but I can't message so I'm not able to ask whether the medication helped. I don't want him to suffer, but I also don't want to make such a permanent decision if there is a chance for him.
My avian vet came to the same conclusion of probably cancer, and no other medications seem to have helped. He's had blood and X-Rays taken. But my vet still says they can't directly confirm it without more intense procedures he may not survive through as he is already only about 68g and exhausted - He has been going up and down in weight for about a month since treatment started. They can't test for everything, particularly for the cancer they suspect, but the time it could take to receive the results may be too late any way.

How do I handle this? What if it's not cancer and it's something treatable?

He's struggling to breathe - ranges from mild open mouth breathing, to panting, and sometimes this is accompanied by squeaks. He still wants snuggles and is climbing around. He doesn't seem to act any different on Meloxicam. He is eating/drinking, and doesn't appear to be vomiting any more (though he had one vomit incident after I gave him some Amphoteracin B), but he's been in and out of care because he was eating intermittently and not gaining weight, even with crop feeds they only got him up a few grams to the 68g.

He was about 90 - 100g normally. But not overweight. He developed a swollen crop, progessively lost his voice, vomiting, and started losing weight. The first blood work and faeces checks didn't seem to turn up anything serious - my vet said he had signs of having had an infection - but when the crop wouldn't go down a foreign body was suspected, they operated and a bunch of gunk came out but no foreign body. This was over the past 2 months. He was at a steady 80g for a week after surgery, but then dropped a few more before I had the vet take him in again, and he stayed at around 75g, but then started dropping when home again. He has stayed around thr 66g - 71g over the past few days.

He has had:
Meloxicam
Cerenia
Flagyl
Augmentin
F10 on a nebuliser
Amphoteracin B

My vet can't do full bloodwork, but they said if they send it away it might be a wait and if it is cancer there isn't anything they can do, and he will probably pass before they get the results back or they can do a surgical look to check the tissue... which he may not survive any way.

I don't want my hope on a miracle to ruin what little life he may have left, so I don't know what to do. I hate the uncertainty. It would be easier if it was "Yep, he has cancer for sure." and not "Probably cancer, based on :_____ but we can't 100% confirm without risking his life or it'll take too long to find out any way."

Thankyou for any advice.