Sophie
Sophie's dead
She died at 12:30 cupped in my loving hand with the sun shining on her, the breeze ruffling her feathers and pigeons nearby.
Saturday, 9/19, 10:30AM
I've given her the meds and fluids and put her crate outside so that she can be closer to the pigeons that she so wants to join. Her condition is very poor.
Saturday, 9/19, 9:00AM
Sophie survived the night but she is worse off and now obviously suffering. She can't stand or walk hardly and still, when I open her crate, she tries to scuttle away from me for fear of the stuff that I'm going to do to her- the shots and fluids and such. Those things are uncomfortable but the infected and inflamed air sac is painful and must be more so when she is handled and so the poor thing really doesn't want to be handled.
I've been dealing with death a lot in the past year and a half. On April 1, 2008, my beloved pionus parrot, Charlie, died unexpectedly overnight at the vet's office. Two weeks later, Pearl, a baby pigeon that I was caring for and had grown very close to died. In June, my step-father, Bob, died as I held his hand, when he was taken off a respirator. In August, Einstein died. On November eleventh, Pal died in my arms, unexpectedly. On November twelfth, my mother was taken off a respirator and slipped away so quietly that, even though I was holding her hand, I didn't see her go. She was 79 but she wasn't ready to die. She still had stuff to do.
And of course there have been many pigeon deaths - Tank in January, Carmen, Pink, Persia, Winnie...
I used to have a vague notion of spirits being reunited in some sort of heaven but after my mother died and I really, really thought about it, I came to the conclusion that death is the end. I believe that is the whole point of life- that that exact spark, that exquisite equation that makes up an individual is sustained only by life and that, once dead, it is lost forever. Mourned, loved, missed, remembered but gone.
I used to also be more quick to support euthanasia than I am now. I euthanized Tank because he was struggling to get enough air even in an oxygen tank and he looked to me to be suffering and he had terminal cancer. But even then I didn't do it without ambivalence. Too often, I believe, we euthanize animals to save ourselves from suffering. I know of many that would have been euthanized but that survived and are alive and well because their caretaker didn't flinch from them when they were at the worst edge.
I used to have a lot more faith in painkillers as well. The doctors fought the seesaw of making my mother comfortable without further depressing her breathing. I have Butorphanol but it will do Sophie as much harm as it might help.
Sophie's life is the only thing she has. And now I have to figure out whether I'm going to go frighten and hurt her with treatments in the hope of helping her beat death or whether I'm going to leave her alone. I believe she is suffering either way. I don't think she'll make it. She had shown a little improvement Wednesday afternoon/Thursday morning and she's been getting worse ever since.
Friday, 9/18, 6:30PM
Sophie's test results show that her white blood count has dropped from 23K on 9/14 to 4K on 9/17 and that can mean either that she is successfully defeating the infection that she is battling or that her body can no longer throw out any more white blood cells and she is losing the fight. As much as we'd like to believe the former, the latter is more likely. The UC Davis radiologist believes she has an infected air sac. We're adding (mercifully oral) Ciproflaxin and Meloxicam to her injected Claforan. She's been feeling terribly all day. When I took her out to see the backyard pigeons, she wanted desperately to get away from me and to join them and I don't blame her. She's sick of medicine and needles and trips to the vet and syringe feeding. She just wants to be a baby pigeon. If I could let her join them, I would.
Friday, 9/18, 9AM
Sophie appears to feel like crap this morning which isn't surprising after the day she had yesterday. Her legs appear to hurt (no doubt from getting sub cu fluid injections 2x a day and who knows why all else) and she's just less vital than she was yesterday morning. I have her set up on top of her crate with her window open and a great view of the backyard birds and I'm trying to keep her as comfortable as possible. It's a warm, beautiful day in SF.
Thursday, 9/17, 9PM
OMG! We left the house this morning at 8 am to be on time for her 10 am appointment at the UC Davis Small Animal Clinic and we just now got home. Skinny and at-risk of dehydration as she is, she had to be fasted as of midnight (no food or fluids) last night. She never got the x-ray we were there for until after 4 pm!!! And then no food or fluids until after 6 pm when I asked them to PLEASE gavage feed her before sending us on our 2 hour drive home. The poor thing is so exhausted she's sleeping on the threshold of her crate, literally too tired to take another step.
Turns out ultrasound isn't good for imaging this sort of anomaly so they did more radiographs. Findings were unusual and blood and culture test results are pending. Sophie has coelomic effusion (free fluid in abdomen) and "an unusual gas pocket in the caudal coelom". Likely some type of infection or imflammatory process. $450. She's continuing with the injected Claforan, handfeeding and sub cu fluids for now.
I'm impressed she survived today. It was a RIDONCULOUS ordeal.
Wednesday, 9/16 Update, 10PM
Sophie's not been too happy because she's getting injected antibiotics twice a day, injected fluids (subcutaneously) two to three times a day and three to four syringe-fed meals which is a whole lot of intrusive, uncomfortable stuff to do to a super skinny, feeling-crappy baby pigeon. And she's all alone and I'm sort of the only friend she has and yet I'm the one doing all the terrible stuff to her so she accepts a little comforting from me but she can't trust me because she never knows when I'll start sticking her with sharp needles and such.
This morning, Sophie was feeling really badly. But this afternoon and evening she's doing better. I think the injected Claforan is working. She's got a little more energy and this afternoon, when I took her outside to watch the backyard pigeons, she got so inspired that I brought her food out to eat al fresco. Seeing pigeons eat stimulates the non-eating bird to want to eat and, while Sophie more pecked at the seeds than ate them, it was the first interest she's shown in food in days. Then, when we came indoors, she ate a little tiny bit with the baby pigeon in her mirror for company. And after she "ate", she put herself to bed facing the wall trying for some peace and quiet in this crazy place. I wish I had a little sleep mask for her to wear.
I still needed to syringe feed her but it was a really nice development and she gave me two improved poops this afternoon as well- gifts! Then, tonight, after I was finished with all the poking stuff, I opened her crate door and she hopped in! It was an awkward, unsteady hop but a hop just the same and it made me smile for the first time all day.
We've got a 10 am appointment at the UC Davis Small Animal Clinic tomorrow. She's still a very sick baby bird. She'll get an ultrasound and I don't know what all else. Donations are needed to help pay for her care. Please go to http://www.mickaboo.org/, click on the DONATE button and specify "Sophie" or "pigeon" in the notes (clicking here WON'T work).
Thank you.
Sophie
Sophie is a sick and/or injured baby king pigeon, about 6 weeks old, that needs donations to pay for vet care. MickaCoo has already spent $350 that we don't have trying to diagnose what the matter is and more diagnostics are still needed.
Here's her story.
On 8/22, a nice man named Francisco was walking his two dogs in Dolores Park and he saw that a king pigeon was hiding behind a truck and unable to fly. Recognizing that she was in danger, he took her to SF Animal Care & Control. On 9/10, I was there to pick up pigeons who were running out of time and transport them to the Marin Humane Society which had kindly agreed to make room for them. Sophie was hunched and fluffed and obviously ill so she couldn't go to MHS with the others but, because I knew I had a foster who would make room to care for her, I was able to get her released as well.
Sophie's problems include being severely underweight (276 grams when she should be about 400), she was covered with feather lice, has a beige stain on her breast from ongoing nasal discharge, was fluffed and lethargic. I made a vet appointment for her for the following day. In the morning though, she was eating and looking better and so, to not spend money MickaCoo doesn't have, I cancelled her appointment, hopeful I could care for her at home. I wormed her and started her on an antibiotic that has worked well for young birds with nasal discharge before. I planned to keep her for just a couple of days as I wanted to get her on the right track before she went to her foster home.
Unfortunately, Sophie hasn't improved and in fact has gotten worse. By Friday afternoon she had stopped eating (which, thin as she was despite 2.5 weeks in the shelter, wasn't a new problem). I hand fed her thawed peas and corn on Saturday and supplemented her water via syringe. On Sunday, concerned that her crop was emptying too slowly, I reduced her hand feeding to a watery juvenile bird formula and added sub cutaneous fluids. Her nose stopped running but other than that she was worse off rather than better.
I took her to the vet on Monday and she's been switched to an injectable antibiotic. Blood tests show that she is anemic and that her white count is elevated and the cells are young and toxic meaning that she is being overwhelmed by the infection. No parasites or yeast was found. The one x-ray that was taken shows an unknown mass in her abdomen. It could be an abscess, a congenital deformity or ? More x-ray views are needed to better image it. The hand feeding and sub cu fluids continue.
The vet had recommended hospitalizing her but with funds so hard to raise and since I can give the injections and fluids, I brought her home. And I know she likes to watch and listen to the backyard pigeons through the window. Sophie really needs your help. Previous generous donations have been wiped out by sick and injured birds like Persia and Winter and Peppermint.
Please go to http://www.mickaboo.org/, click on the DONATE button and specify "Sophie" or "pigeon" in the notes (clicking here WON'T work).
Thank you.
She died at 12:30 cupped in my loving hand with the sun shining on her, the breeze ruffling her feathers and pigeons nearby.
Saturday, 9/19, 10:30AM
I've given her the meds and fluids and put her crate outside so that she can be closer to the pigeons that she so wants to join. Her condition is very poor.
Saturday, 9/19, 9:00AM
Sophie survived the night but she is worse off and now obviously suffering. She can't stand or walk hardly and still, when I open her crate, she tries to scuttle away from me for fear of the stuff that I'm going to do to her- the shots and fluids and such. Those things are uncomfortable but the infected and inflamed air sac is painful and must be more so when she is handled and so the poor thing really doesn't want to be handled.
I've been dealing with death a lot in the past year and a half. On April 1, 2008, my beloved pionus parrot, Charlie, died unexpectedly overnight at the vet's office. Two weeks later, Pearl, a baby pigeon that I was caring for and had grown very close to died. In June, my step-father, Bob, died as I held his hand, when he was taken off a respirator. In August, Einstein died. On November eleventh, Pal died in my arms, unexpectedly. On November twelfth, my mother was taken off a respirator and slipped away so quietly that, even though I was holding her hand, I didn't see her go. She was 79 but she wasn't ready to die. She still had stuff to do.
And of course there have been many pigeon deaths - Tank in January, Carmen, Pink, Persia, Winnie...
I used to have a vague notion of spirits being reunited in some sort of heaven but after my mother died and I really, really thought about it, I came to the conclusion that death is the end. I believe that is the whole point of life- that that exact spark, that exquisite equation that makes up an individual is sustained only by life and that, once dead, it is lost forever. Mourned, loved, missed, remembered but gone.
I used to also be more quick to support euthanasia than I am now. I euthanized Tank because he was struggling to get enough air even in an oxygen tank and he looked to me to be suffering and he had terminal cancer. But even then I didn't do it without ambivalence. Too often, I believe, we euthanize animals to save ourselves from suffering. I know of many that would have been euthanized but that survived and are alive and well because their caretaker didn't flinch from them when they were at the worst edge.
I used to have a lot more faith in painkillers as well. The doctors fought the seesaw of making my mother comfortable without further depressing her breathing. I have Butorphanol but it will do Sophie as much harm as it might help.
Sophie's life is the only thing she has. And now I have to figure out whether I'm going to go frighten and hurt her with treatments in the hope of helping her beat death or whether I'm going to leave her alone. I believe she is suffering either way. I don't think she'll make it. She had shown a little improvement Wednesday afternoon/Thursday morning and she's been getting worse ever since.
Friday, 9/18, 6:30PM
Sophie's test results show that her white blood count has dropped from 23K on 9/14 to 4K on 9/17 and that can mean either that she is successfully defeating the infection that she is battling or that her body can no longer throw out any more white blood cells and she is losing the fight. As much as we'd like to believe the former, the latter is more likely. The UC Davis radiologist believes she has an infected air sac. We're adding (mercifully oral) Ciproflaxin and Meloxicam to her injected Claforan. She's been feeling terribly all day. When I took her out to see the backyard pigeons, she wanted desperately to get away from me and to join them and I don't blame her. She's sick of medicine and needles and trips to the vet and syringe feeding. She just wants to be a baby pigeon. If I could let her join them, I would.
Friday, 9/18, 9AM
Sophie appears to feel like crap this morning which isn't surprising after the day she had yesterday. Her legs appear to hurt (no doubt from getting sub cu fluid injections 2x a day and who knows why all else) and she's just less vital than she was yesterday morning. I have her set up on top of her crate with her window open and a great view of the backyard birds and I'm trying to keep her as comfortable as possible. It's a warm, beautiful day in SF.
Thursday, 9/17, 9PM
OMG! We left the house this morning at 8 am to be on time for her 10 am appointment at the UC Davis Small Animal Clinic and we just now got home. Skinny and at-risk of dehydration as she is, she had to be fasted as of midnight (no food or fluids) last night. She never got the x-ray we were there for until after 4 pm!!! And then no food or fluids until after 6 pm when I asked them to PLEASE gavage feed her before sending us on our 2 hour drive home. The poor thing is so exhausted she's sleeping on the threshold of her crate, literally too tired to take another step.
Turns out ultrasound isn't good for imaging this sort of anomaly so they did more radiographs. Findings were unusual and blood and culture test results are pending. Sophie has coelomic effusion (free fluid in abdomen) and "an unusual gas pocket in the caudal coelom". Likely some type of infection or imflammatory process. $450. She's continuing with the injected Claforan, handfeeding and sub cu fluids for now.
I'm impressed she survived today. It was a RIDONCULOUS ordeal.
Wednesday, 9/16 Update, 10PM
Sophie's not been too happy because she's getting injected antibiotics twice a day, injected fluids (subcutaneously) two to three times a day and three to four syringe-fed meals which is a whole lot of intrusive, uncomfortable stuff to do to a super skinny, feeling-crappy baby pigeon. And she's all alone and I'm sort of the only friend she has and yet I'm the one doing all the terrible stuff to her so she accepts a little comforting from me but she can't trust me because she never knows when I'll start sticking her with sharp needles and such.
This morning, Sophie was feeling really badly. But this afternoon and evening she's doing better. I think the injected Claforan is working. She's got a little more energy and this afternoon, when I took her outside to watch the backyard pigeons, she got so inspired that I brought her food out to eat al fresco. Seeing pigeons eat stimulates the non-eating bird to want to eat and, while Sophie more pecked at the seeds than ate them, it was the first interest she's shown in food in days. Then, when we came indoors, she ate a little tiny bit with the baby pigeon in her mirror for company. And after she "ate", she put herself to bed facing the wall trying for some peace and quiet in this crazy place. I wish I had a little sleep mask for her to wear.
I still needed to syringe feed her but it was a really nice development and she gave me two improved poops this afternoon as well- gifts! Then, tonight, after I was finished with all the poking stuff, I opened her crate door and she hopped in! It was an awkward, unsteady hop but a hop just the same and it made me smile for the first time all day.
We've got a 10 am appointment at the UC Davis Small Animal Clinic tomorrow. She's still a very sick baby bird. She'll get an ultrasound and I don't know what all else. Donations are needed to help pay for her care. Please go to http://www.mickaboo.org/, click on the DONATE button and specify "Sophie" or "pigeon" in the notes (clicking here WON'T work).
Thank you.
Sophie
Sophie is a sick and/or injured baby king pigeon, about 6 weeks old, that needs donations to pay for vet care. MickaCoo has already spent $350 that we don't have trying to diagnose what the matter is and more diagnostics are still needed.
Here's her story.
On 8/22, a nice man named Francisco was walking his two dogs in Dolores Park and he saw that a king pigeon was hiding behind a truck and unable to fly. Recognizing that she was in danger, he took her to SF Animal Care & Control. On 9/10, I was there to pick up pigeons who were running out of time and transport them to the Marin Humane Society which had kindly agreed to make room for them. Sophie was hunched and fluffed and obviously ill so she couldn't go to MHS with the others but, because I knew I had a foster who would make room to care for her, I was able to get her released as well.
Sophie's problems include being severely underweight (276 grams when she should be about 400), she was covered with feather lice, has a beige stain on her breast from ongoing nasal discharge, was fluffed and lethargic. I made a vet appointment for her for the following day. In the morning though, she was eating and looking better and so, to not spend money MickaCoo doesn't have, I cancelled her appointment, hopeful I could care for her at home. I wormed her and started her on an antibiotic that has worked well for young birds with nasal discharge before. I planned to keep her for just a couple of days as I wanted to get her on the right track before she went to her foster home.
Unfortunately, Sophie hasn't improved and in fact has gotten worse. By Friday afternoon she had stopped eating (which, thin as she was despite 2.5 weeks in the shelter, wasn't a new problem). I hand fed her thawed peas and corn on Saturday and supplemented her water via syringe. On Sunday, concerned that her crop was emptying too slowly, I reduced her hand feeding to a watery juvenile bird formula and added sub cutaneous fluids. Her nose stopped running but other than that she was worse off rather than better.
I took her to the vet on Monday and she's been switched to an injectable antibiotic. Blood tests show that she is anemic and that her white count is elevated and the cells are young and toxic meaning that she is being overwhelmed by the infection. No parasites or yeast was found. The one x-ray that was taken shows an unknown mass in her abdomen. It could be an abscess, a congenital deformity or ? More x-ray views are needed to better image it. The hand feeding and sub cu fluids continue.
The vet had recommended hospitalizing her but with funds so hard to raise and since I can give the injections and fluids, I brought her home. And I know she likes to watch and listen to the backyard pigeons through the window. Sophie really needs your help. Previous generous donations have been wiped out by sick and injured birds like Persia and Winter and Peppermint.
Please go to http://www.mickaboo.org/, click on the DONATE button and specify "Sophie" or "pigeon" in the notes (clicking here WON'T work).
Thank you.
posted by Elizabeth at
8:00 PM
1 Comments:
Please continue to update us on Sophie's condition, Elizabeth.
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