For the past 8 years i've had two parrots in my life, a Quaker named Midori and a Sun Conure named Cody. I had Cody since Freshmen year of highschool but got Midori in 2012, the year I graduated. He was just a few months old and when I saw first saw him he would follow me from within his cage. He came home with me in August of 2012.
They never got along unfortunately so I had to take them out separately but Midori was a very sweet boy. He would chirp alot, said hey, coughed,made kissing sounds,etc. At times he would be randomly nippy but he would let me hold him and he even rested his head on my fingers. We had happy years together, but then in December of 2019 something happened. He fell off of his perch at night and when I went to check on him in the morning he would tilt his head to the side alot and I was worried he wasn't eating so I took him to the vet. The first vet (one I didn't normally go to) said he either had an ear infection or its something with his brain and they can't do anything for that, as they don't have a CT scan machine. His regular vet did but it was far out of budget ($1k with no payment plans offered). We were given an antibiotic and meloxicam (anti-inflammatory) drug. He slowly started showing improvment but I took him to his regular vet and they did bloodwork. Everything was normal and they said they don't know for sure whats happened but they think he has had a stroke. One day he might get back to normal it's just going to be a slow recovery. The food he was on was fine, he was too young to have any risk factors.
For a few months things were (mostly) okay. He couldn't use perches as much and he didn't talk as much but he would still chirp and say "hey". He still liked to be held, he was eating. Then in June it seemed like he had a seizure, he couldn't stand at all and his head was tilting even worse. I was scared I was going to loose him then, he wasn't eating. The vet examined him again and said he hasn't lost any weight and he's not in any pain, but he has lost most of his sight. He could only see out of the very front of his eyes and this is why he is moving his head strangely, he's trying to see because the sides of his eyes cannot see at all. (His eyes didn't react to light except for in the front.). She gave us an anti-seizure medicine but because it was a controlled medication she can't give us much. She said at worst, he's a special needs birds now but he's still an otherwise healthy bird.
I gave him the anti seizure medicine and while the improvement wasn't night and day, I could see it helped him. He couldn't really use his perches anymore or play, which made me sad but he was still eating/drinking, he would still chirp. He used to be cage aggressive but now he seemed to just want to be held. He didn't nip anymore. Then...this past week happened. His beak had gotten longer than it normally would because he couldn't really grind it down anymore on his own. I made an appointment to have his beak and nail trimmed which is when they informed he had lost alot of weight. He went from 86 grams to 68 grams. They wanted to have him seen that day but the vet he normally saw wasn't in so he wouldn't be able to get more of the medication. They wanted to do more tests but he was already weak that day, and I couldn't even go in with him due to covid-19 restrictions. I didn't want to leave him alone there. So I said I would make an appointment for when the vet was in next (later this week) and feed him some of the left-over baby bird forumula I had to try to help him gain his weight up since he wasn't really eating that day. (kaytee exact handfeeding formula). The vet said that it was nutrient dense so that would be a good idea. My best friend who was also close with him came over to see him. We both held him and petted him, we fed him multiple syringes of water and the food throughout the day. He started to perk up a little.
The last time I fed him was 6:30pm at night. After that I put a cloth in his cage so he would have somewhere soft to rest. I went to bed but in the middle of the night I heard flapping and went to check on him. I had discovered his wing was stuck between one of the bars of his cage and he was too weak to pull it out so he was stuck there. I pulled it out and gently petted him and placed him on the cloth again. He couldn't really stand then. I heard him flap a little more before I fell back asleep but I thought he was just trying to keep himself upright. I planned to hold him and feed him as soon as I woke up in the morning. I thought about just laying him on my bed for the night but I didn't want him to fly and get hurt. I woke up around 7am and went to go see him and take him out only to discover to my devastation, that he had passed on. His eyes were still open but he had no warmth, I wish I didn't see him that way its very haunting. He wasn't on the cloth anymore.
His vet was closed so I couldn't call them that day, so all I could do was wrap him in a towel. I had to have my mom call to tell them because I haven't been able to stop crying for more than 5 minutes since he passed (this Sunday). We're going to have him cremated and the vet gave me his leg band back. It's too hard to look at it right now but in time I want to put it on his urn or wear it on a necklace. I just feel so awful I wasn't there for him in his final moments, I didn't know. I would have held him all night even if I didn't get any sleep but I didn't because I thought he'd still be there in the morning. He must have been so scared and confused, I hope he didn't think I didn't care about him.
How do I get through this? He was only 8 years old and I have few people in my life, this year has been hard for me already but now I feel like I can't go on. I can't get over that I wasn't there for him, that I didn't get to say goodbye. I can't look at pictures of quakers, I can't even look at his side of the room. I moved his cage out of the room but its so obvious what is missing. It was very hard when I lost my dogs, my parakeets but this is just, too much. He deserved so much better.
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Midori April 2012- August 9th, 2020
I can't really go more than 5 minutes without crying, even as soon as I wake up he's who I think of. I keep thinking he's just in another room,that he's somewhere waiting for me, but he's not. I thought we would have a long life together, but I lost him way too soon.
