Hello. My grandmother lives with us, and has been admitted to the hospital for a long-overdue back surgery. While testing her for possible infections, the nurse swabs her nose and diagnoses her with MRSA. When looking into possible causes, the nurse asks us if we own any pets, and obviously we do.
We told her about our parakeets (which we breed), our finches, our parrots, our cats... She seemed to believe that our parakeets were the cause, and that my grandmother couldn't be around them. This is difficult, because we keep them indoors. The weather here is turbulent, and keeping them outdoors would definitely constitute as abuse without constant monitoring.
We offered to keep the parakeets on a different floor of the house while she's healing, and the nurse said that their dander would still cause issues. Basically, she's been insinuating that I should get rid of my parakeets before my grandmother comes home with us.
I've heard that people with cats are eight times more likely to contract MRSA. So I'm wondering why the nurse didn't think that the cats may be the cause? We have four of them. I'm thinking her suspicion may lie in the fact that we have twenty parakeets, and to someone who doesn't have birds, that might sound like a lot. But their cage is always crystal clean, and they're always tended to like little kings and queens.
So... opinions? I don't want to have to rehome a majority of my parakeets. They're my joy, and seeing them go would ruin me.
We told her about our parakeets (which we breed), our finches, our parrots, our cats... She seemed to believe that our parakeets were the cause, and that my grandmother couldn't be around them. This is difficult, because we keep them indoors. The weather here is turbulent, and keeping them outdoors would definitely constitute as abuse without constant monitoring.
We offered to keep the parakeets on a different floor of the house while she's healing, and the nurse said that their dander would still cause issues. Basically, she's been insinuating that I should get rid of my parakeets before my grandmother comes home with us.
I've heard that people with cats are eight times more likely to contract MRSA. So I'm wondering why the nurse didn't think that the cats may be the cause? We have four of them. I'm thinking her suspicion may lie in the fact that we have twenty parakeets, and to someone who doesn't have birds, that might sound like a lot. But their cage is always crystal clean, and they're always tended to like little kings and queens.
So... opinions? I don't want to have to rehome a majority of my parakeets. They're my joy, and seeing them go would ruin me.