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From: Wayne Boatwright on 13 Sep 2005 00:40
On Mon 12 Sep 2005 01:55:47p, wrote in alt.support.grief.pet-loss:

> My regret is not leaving her alone when she flew down to the floor.
> I'm sure I stressed her out during the pursuit, but I was afraid she'd
> fly into a wall and break her neck. It was like she had no control over
> where she was flying, and she wasn't flying well at all. It was a real
> effort for her. Her heart was beating so fast when I caught her. My
> guess is that this whole pursuit lasted under 2 minutes, but I'm not
> feeling good about possibly causing her a heart attack, if that's what
> happend.
>
> Thanks for your kind words, Wayne. That helps me cope right now.

Jim, one last thought to remember...

We do what we think is best at those crucial moments. After the fact, we
agonize over whether we should or should not have done them. In most every
case, whatever we did or didn't do would probably not have altered the
outcome. Try very hard not to blame yourself.

When I was a child of 10 or 11, my parents bought me a blue parakeet. A
couple of years later I won a lime colored parakeet at the Cotton Carnival
in Memphis. My parakeets shared a cage and played and flew together.
Their cage was kept in our breafast room. One evening at dinner, we heard
a thud. When we looked around we discovered that my lime colored parakeet
had literally dropped dead off his perch. There was absolutely no prior
evidence of illness. It took me years to get over that, as it was very
traumatic to me. A few years later, we were moving to the UK and could not
take my blue parakeet with us. I gave her to my best friend. She lived to
be nearly 14 years old! I think that's a ripe old age for a parakeet, but
I might be wrong.

Just as with people, we never know when someone will be taken from us, or
what the circumstances of their leaving will be. Coping with our loss is
sometimes very difficult.

A few years ago I had to make a decision to have my cat put to sleep. She
had been suffering with chronic renal failure. I realize now that it was
the kindest thing I could have done for her as she was declining rapidly.
Still, even now with that knowledge, I often think I should have done
something different.

It's very nard...

Take care of yourself and your family...

Best regards,

--
Wayne Boatwright *?*
____________________________________________

Okay, okay, I take it back! UnScrew you!

From: K2 on 13 Sep 2005 07:24
While an emergency veterinary hospital may not have an "avian" vet - they
are all staffed 24 hours & all vets learned about birds - they could keep
one comfortable if they could not fix the problem.

Kim

<jimdep1(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1126581540.816720.325760(a)g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Kim,
> Thanks for thoughts and providing me this link.
> I will go through it and see what emergency care
> might be available. This time I will call before there is
> an incident and find out what the plan is during weekends and after
> hours.
>


From: glsummer on 13 Sep 2005 13:59
On 12 Sep 2005 10:05:12 -0700, jimdep1(a)yahoo.com wrote:

>
>Henri (Henrietta-green and yellow female) has been a member of our
>family for 8 ? years. As a baby bird, we named her "Henry" after
>one of the green engines from the Thomas the Tank Engine series, while
>our son was still a little boy. Henry turned out to be a girl, but we
>kept the name.
>
>She passed away yesterday several hours of seizures and fighting for
>her life. My wife, Cindy and I couldn't find an emergency avian vet
>anywhere on a Sunday to return our calls. We are somewhat new to this
>area (northeast MA) and wrongly assumed that local avian vets would
>respond to the emergency numbers on their message machines. We spent
>aggravating hours leaving messages and waiting for return calls that
>never happened. We called local pet stores, but they had the same
>phones numbers as we did. The animal hospitals within wide range did
>not have an avian vet on duty. I believe that Henri probably
>wouldn't have survived anyway, but we were willing to do whatever was
>necessary to save her. Today, I am typing through tears feeling
>compelled to describe what happened.
>
>Henri and George (2 1/2 year old white and blue male) have lived
>together in the same cage we keep suspended from the ceiling in the
>living room. George and Henri absolutely adored each other. Henri was
>like a mother to George, and took to him immediately. We let them out
>during the day, and cover them at night. They always stayed close to
>the cage, and got plenty of exercise. One of the many games we had
>with Henri was saying "Fly Henri, Fly!" She'd get all excited and
>do couple loops in the room and then return to the top of her cage.
>Although neither bird would talk like people, George could softly say
>Herni's name in a question sound, "Henri?"
>
>The night before last, about 4am, my wife and I awoke to a loud
>distress call from one of our two parakeets in the living room. It was
>a horrible lower pitched sound that I haven't heard before. Sometimes
>George will have a panic during the night, but this was different. It
>was a steady, loud and fast CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP . My wife
>said "That sounds like Henri!!" I quickly went into the living
>room, called to the birds, turned on a light, lifted the cover and
>discovered them both on the bottom of the cage, instead of their usual
>perching spot during the night. In a panic, they flew out of the cage.
>George went up to his usual spot on the curtain rod, but Henri went
>straight down to the floor. She looked totally frightened and
>disoriented.
>I bent down, put my finger out and said "Step up, Henri", but she
>flew forward, crashed into one object, and then another like she was
>blind. I followed and called out to her as she kept flying aimlessly.
>Now I'm worried that she'd have a heart attack from being pursued,
>or injure herself by flying into a wall. After I was able to cup my
>hands around her to escort her back to her cage, I noticed that her
>little heart was beating very fast. I placed her onto the perch in the
>cage, George returned, and I covered them back up. I talked calmly with
>them for a few minutes, all seemed normal and I returned to bed. I
>remember telling my wife, "It's like Herni was flying around
>blind."
>
>About a half hour later, we again woke to the loud, fast and steady
>CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP. This time we both sprang out of bed. We
>removed the cover, opened the cage, George flew out, and Henri remained
>in the cage, continuing this horrible sound. My wife took Henri out,
>and talked soothingly to her, but now Henri appears to be having a
>seizure. I gave my familiar "charge" whistle and few other whistle
>sounds she was familiar with over the years, and she stopped squawking
>for about a minute or so, and then the attack returned. She was
>squawking loudly and her whole left side was spasming. Her heart was
>pounding while her left wing and foot were twitching uncontrollably.
>The phone calls for emergency assistance started, but without success.
>We took turns holding her, making sure to keep her warm. George
>reacted by watching from the curtain road and occasionally swooped over
>us, and squawked while looking at Henri the whole time. We all felt
>completely helpless.
>
>This agonizing episode continued for hours as we held her. Henri kept
>squawking loudly, her body and head twitching, but little by little she
>was getting weaker. She hadn't responded to our voices since her
>first seizure. We held her, talked to her; put a cue tip with warm
>water up to her beak while her tongue dabbled at it. We allowed George
>some alone time with Henri on top of the cage, while he chattered at
>her and preened her feathers. She looked completely disoriented, moving
>in circles. This was heartwarming behavior from George, but very tough
>to watch, with the reality that we going to lose her.
>
>Again, Cindy and I held Henri, while we continued all morning trying to
>get emergency assistance. After 1pm, Henri became quiet for a while, as
>Cindy kept him nuzzled against her shoulder. While Henri looked more
>relaxed, I told her it was ok to go to sleep. Then in a last burst of
>energy, she squawked, and began flapping her wings furiously as though
>she regained consciousness. Cindy said soothingly, "Fly, Henri,
>Fly". Henri relaxed and all the energy left her body. As she took her
>last breath, Cindy again said "Fly Henri, Fly."
>
>After regaining my composure, I let George see Henri's body, gave him
>some alone time with her on top of the cage and I'm sure that helped
>him understand what had happened. He was defiantly grieving. He nudged
>her body a few time, chattered and squawked angrily, and gently preened
>her feathers. A few times he'd be silent, and then said "Henri?"
>as though asking a question. We gave George plenty of attention for the
>rest of the day, and I stayed in the living room last night with him
>for a while after covering the cage and talked to him.
>
>This morning George is very quiet, sits in one spot and blinks his
>eyes. He's not dive bombing me like he usually does, playing with his
>toys or flying at all. I talk to him, he moves his head to show he's
>listening, says "Henri?" now and then, but that' about it.
>
>I am not intentionally trying to portray George's reaction as being
>human, however his behavior since Henri's death has changed, and I
>interpret this as his way of grieving.
>
> Additional information regarding Henri's seizure and death
>shows there was no diarrhea or vomiting. She continued passing stools
>normally until she died. During her last hour before death, her tongue
>was no longer responding to the water drops.
>I don't know what killed her, but we'd like to find out.
>
>I continually question myself about what I could have or should have
>done differently. If I had left her alone when she flew out of the
>cage, could that have prevented the seizure? I don't know, but I my
>instincts told me to get her back in the cage so she wouldn't hurt
>herself by crashing into something. We painfully learned that we need
>to have a plan in place for our pets, if they should ever need
>emergency care that isn't during animal hospital business hours. The
>system that we thought was in place, failed. Once I recover a little
>more emotionally, I will contact these vets that didn't return our
>calls. Again, I don't know if there's any thing they could have
>done for Henri, other than make her more comfortable. Under a vet's
>care, we would have been willing to do that.
>
>I appreciate those of you who took the time to read this. Henri was
>part of our family and she is greatly missed and will be always in our
>hearts and prayers. Yesterday was our son's 13th birthday, and he
>had to leave the house by mid morning to deal with this in his own way.
>Since 9/11/2002, he almost expects something bad to happen on his
>birthday. This didn't help. We tried to make his birthday cheerful
>for him the best we could, but it wasn't easy. We plan to get George
>another female parakeet, but right now, I'm not sure how long to
>wait. This is a grueling experience and I welcome questions or
>comments.
>Again, thanks for reading.
>
>Jim

Jim, I am so sorry for your loss. There is not much help I can offer,
not being familiar with birds or how avian vets work. But from your
story, I don't think there is anything else you could have done. You
did the best you could under difficult circumstances. Talking to the
vets now and putting a plan in place for the future sounds good,
although, like you, I am not sure the vets could have done anything.

I'm sure George is, indeed, grieving. I have had grieving pets after
losing one myself, and each grieves differently, but each does, in
time, heal. And so do we humans.

My heart goes out to you.

Blessings,

Ginger-lyn

Home Pages:
http://www.spiritrealm.com/summer/
http://www.angelfire.com/folk/glsummer (homepage & cats)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~summer/index.htm (genealogy)
http://www.movieanimals.bravehost.com/ (The Violence Against
Animals in Movies Website)
From: jimdep1 on 14 Sep 2005 16:12
Wayne, Kim, Noon Cat Nick, Ginger-lyn.
Your'e the best. Thanks again for encouragement
during this extremely difficult time.

George is starting to come around, but it's obvious to me that he's a
very lonely bird. He looks like a lost soul.
I had a long talk with George again last night, reminded him of how I
feel, and how I think he feels, etc. I talked about how Henri has been
called back to Heaven, much the same way I think I'd explain death to a

young child. Geroge was more focused on my words more than I think
I've ever seen him. I covered his cage and stayed up with him for a
while. He perched himself so that he could see me sitting on the couch
through an opening in the cover. Before Henri passed away, I don't
recall George ever doing that.

Someone else in this forum empahasised the importance of talking to a
grieving pet. It really does make a difference.

George looked totally lost this morning, and I didn't feel good about
leaving him alone, but we had jobs and school to go to.


While driving the 7 miles to work, thoughts of Henri during the final
hours continued to hurt me like a knife. I thought about turning
around, thinking I'd fall apart if someone cared enough to ask why I
missed work the day before. Driving the back country roads with the sun

coming up, I screamed "Fly Henri Fly!!!" as loud as I could, thinking
maybe she could hear me. All in vain of course, but I felt better
afterward.
I made it through work today but it felt like I was in a vacuum of
depression. I had the empty feeling that no one at the work place can
relate to this type of experience. "Yup, that's right folks. All this
over a bird." The subject never came up.


I couldn't wait to get home to check on George. Later this afternoon,
I was the first one to arrive home. As I approached, George greeted me

with loud happy chirps before I even turned the front door knob . I was

very excited to see him too. The problem remains, however that he is
very lonely.


I'm grateful for this forum consisting of sensitive, quality human
beings as you have shown yourselves to be. My guess is that most anyone

outside this forum would think I'm totally nuts.


Since a little time has elapsed, I'd like to directly respond to a few
of your comments while offering a few more descriptions and thoughts
while the tragic event was happening, beginning with a recap:


Saturday Night, Henri is fine. Plenty of energy and good appitite.
Sunday 4am - Attack #1
My dilemma:
I could have left her alone giving her time to calm down, knowing I was

risking her having a heart attack in her present paniced state, if I
continued to try and catch her. Instead I chose to catch her and
return her to the cage.
I'm still struggling with this and it absolutely haunts me. I wish I'd
let her sit and left her alone for a bit. Could that have prevented the

second attack? I'll never know.


Note: Usually there's always a little night light in the room, but it
was off for some reason. I thought this may have contributed to the
night-panic attack, which I hoped it still was until the 2nd attack
convinced me otherwise.


Mistake #2 - I'm kicking myself for not staying up to observe Henri
after I placed her back in the cage, knowing this experience was
extreme. Could that have prevented the second attack? I don't know.


Attack #2 - 1/2 hour later
For lack of a better word, I'll say that Henri was siezuring when Cindy

took Henri out of the cage. Other than the brief calming when I
whislted to her, she was completely unresponsive to us or George. She
was squawking in a way that tore me to pieces, with her heart pounding.

Her left wing and foot were twitching, her head was twitching and
turning to one side. Her body temperature increased as time went on,
her squawkes became weaker and her feathers were puffy until she died
hours later.


What vet we could reach said "We don't treat birds". When no one else

responded, I had thoughts of putting her to sleep myself. Maybe
drowning or sufficating would be more merciful than what she was going
through.

I couldn't do it. I wanted to believe that God would take her on His
time table, and I needed to have faith. At 11am, well after Henri had
lost much of her strength, a pet store about an hour's drive away
offered to euthanize her, but said we couldn't be in the room with her.

Again, we couldn't do it. We felt that Henri had already suffered the
worst of it. At this point, she was fading and we wanted Henri to die
at home with us holding her. It felt like the right thing to do.
As difficut as it was,and is for my wife, she felt Henri's last heart
beat.


Thanks again for letting me get this out. You folks are the best.
Looking forward, we think it would be good for George to get a new
bird. He's only two and should have a playmate. It will happen, it's
just a matter of when. Probably soon.
Kim: Thanks again for the contacts. I have a few more leads than I had
before.
Wayne: Your words of comfort are much appreciated.
Noon Cat Nick - Your are so right. I wish I could write poetry like
that!
Ginger-lyn - Our next bird will be named after you.

From: wester on 14 Sep 2005 18:55
On 14 Sep 2005 13:12:07 -0700, jimdep1(a)yahoo.com wrote:

>Wayne, Kim, Noon Cat Nick, Ginger-lyn.
>Your'e the best. Thanks again for encouragement
>during this extremely difficult time.
>
>George is starting to come around, but it's obvious to me that he's a
>very lonely bird. He looks like a lost soul.
>I had a long talk with George again last night, reminded him of how I
>feel, and how I think he feels, etc. I talked about how Henri has been
>called back to Heaven, much the same way I think I'd explain death to a
>
>young child. Geroge was more focused on my words more than I think
>I've ever seen him. I covered his cage and stayed up with him for a
>while. He perched himself so that he could see me sitting on the couch
>through an opening in the cover. Before Henri passed away, I don't
>recall George ever doing that.

You should get George another female. It'd be nice if he had another
friend to play with.

And you did the best you could for Henri. She's waiting at the Bridge
for you.



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