One Sick Bird

Well, some of you may have wondered where I wandered off these last 48 hours. My bird seems to have had some type of stroke and I have been trying to nurse her to some version of health these last 48 hours. Currently she is one sick bird. I have a Double-Yellow Headed Amazon, subspecies Tres Marie and we have been together over 28 years. She has had some health issues in the past, but has been healthy these last two years. Three years ago I finally discovered her true gender, she laid an egg for the first time since we were together, even the various vets believed her to be a male...

Anyway, you may have noticed that I don't use the term "own" this bird. We have been together so long that there is no real way that I own her anymore than I own the air I breathe. I may have owned her the first few weeks, but after that, whatever she needed or wanted, she usually got. Not much different than having children. Actually, many people teased me that she was essentially my child. We have had many adventures together, she has been through a lot of moving, she has been through a marriage and a divorce, and most recently, she has been on the road whenever we travel. I do not leave her or board her if it is at all possible, especially as she has gotten older.

When I first encountered her, she was a pretty sick little bird too, and it took the vets and I about a year to clear all her respiratory problems up. We discovered in that year that she had allergies and a light form of asthma. We were able to create allergy shots for her, and I learned to clean out her nose when she got too congested. You could say that our relationship developed quickly due to her need for medical care, but even though I was giving her shots several times a day, she quickly learned to trust me in all that I did. She did also learn to hate one particular towel (which I always used to wrap her up prior to giving her a shot or flush out her nose...) but after all was said and done, she did trust me to help her feel better.

Two years ago, she seemed to have had some sort of mini-stroke (my observations, not the vet's), not sure what it was, but she lost some movement in one of her feet. She seemed to be in a lot of pain when she put weight on her foot, so we assumed she wrenched it somehow. We took her to the vet and he provided her some pain medication and some antibiotics, but she quickly got worse. At one point, she had lost so much weight that we thought for sure she was not going to survive, but once I discarded the medications and just gave her protein drinks, she rallied and became healthy again.

A year after that episode is when she started laying eggs, which is very odd for a bird as old as she was. (BTW - she was estimated to be around 7(ish) years old when I found her, don't know where she was for her first years..) She stopped laying eggs last year for which I was very grateful, since I didn't want to cook the ones she laid and I was also told that a bird in her mid-30's laying eggs was hazardous to her health. She still seemed fine, with some bouts of depression when we were not on the road.

She loves traveling more than any animal or person I know. If we don't drive around with her after a month or so, she gets depressed and then sick...

Well, late this last Friday evening, I heard some scrabbling on the bottom of her cage and knew something was not right. After 10pm she is usually on her night-perch and doesn't move around until dawn the next day. When I covered her that night, she seemed fine, but when I uncovered her around 11:30 that evening, she was on the floor of her cage with her wings spread out. When I reached into the cage to see what was up, she just fussed at me, but couldn't move. I thought she had somehow tangled her foot on the floor of the cage, so promptly went underneath to see if I could help.

What I discovered was that she was unable to move either of her legs or feet. Her right foot was curled up, and her left foot was open, but would not close. The only thing that moved on her was her beak and her wings. I picked her out of the cage and tried to see if anything was broken. I discovered that she had lost a frightening amount of weight, but could not find anything else wrong. Since then, I have spent all my waking hours with her, trying to entice her to eat and drink and hopefully regain the use of her legs and feet.

Today she is looking perkier, but is still unable to move either of her feet. She is learning to move around by dragging her body with her beak and with her wings. I continue to spend the majority of my time with her on either my lap or chest, or on a pillow right next to me. She is more alert today and not sleeping as much, but I am not sure she is out of the woods yet. What she is eating today is a protein drink (ST-5) and that does seem to be giving her extra energy. She doesn't seem to be in any significant pain, but seems to go through bouts of extreme frustration because she cannot climb onto her perch, nor can she sit on my shoulder, which she loves to do.

I will continue to work with her, hoping that she will rally, but if you do not see me online much, please realize that I am not ignoring you, but focusing on helping my bird recover. I was forewarned that due to her earlier respiratory illness, she may have a shortened life expectancy (this species lives to be about 50 years old), but she is still relatively young for her species and I am hoping that she will recover fully, like the last time. I am even hoping that the ST-5 combined with a little bit of our StemEnhance product from StemTech will help her to recover. The ST-5 has done wonders so far this weekend, and I will start her on the StemEnhance first thing tomorrow. (The StemPet product does not seem to appeal to her since it was designed as a chewable pill for dogs and she doesn't want to chew anything right now. The good news is that she really likes the ST-5 in both juice and plain water.)

I will keep you all posted, sorry this was a long rant, but I am very worried about my companion, and anyone who has had the privilege of being owned by a dog, cat, or any type of pet, most likely understands the worry and pain I am going through. I admit, I am greedy, 28 years has been great, I would like another 10 more years with her. She has done a lot to improve my quality of life.

Until tomorrow...

How is Your Pet's Health?

Today we went back to the Surgeon to find out how our little Yorkie, Hawg, is healing. For those of you who may have missed the last several days of blogs, Hawg, had to go in to the Animal Hospital for emergency surgery, he had kidney stones that he could not pass. This is a scary experience for anyone who cares about their pets, but even more frightening when you are not near your home and have to go to an unknown vet in a town you are visiting. How is your pet's health?

We thought our Hawg was healthy. We take both him and Gypsy in to the vet for their annual physical, we get their annual shots and nothing came up as unusual for either dog. We were introduced to a new nutritional line of products that are completely different from all the others we have seen on the market. This line of nutritional products from STEMTech are based around naturally increasing the amount of your own adult stem cells in your circulatory system so that your body can better replenish and refresh itself. I have been taking StemEnhance since late December and started taking StemFLO in early February.

Personally I have seen significant improvements in my overall quality of life since I started on the STEMTech products and expect to continue to see improvements overall. Since STEMTech also offers stem cell nutritional products for Dogs and Horses, I figured that if I was experiencing improved quality of life issues, then perhaps our dogs could also benefit from the same improvements in their quality of life. I started giving StemPETS to both of our dogs in mid-May.

If you know our dogs, their quality of life is pretty darned good, especially because they Hawg is 4 and Gypsy is almost 5 years old. They have been experiencing good health and are lean and active. I figured that in order to keep them happy and healthy, I should start them on the stem cell nutrition regimen early on so that they have a longer and better quality of life. Since they exhibited no health problems, I figured that taking StemPETS would keep them healthy and active over the years and that they may experience less aging issues along the line.

What I did not expect was to see the benefits of putting them on a nutritional product before problems arose. It appears that Hawg had been developing kidney stones for months, if not years prior to my putting him on StemPETS. The advantage that Hawg had because he had been on StemPETS for at least a month prior to this incident is that he remained relatively healthy and strong, even through the surgery.

The Surgeon was impressed with Hawg's overall health and was very impressed with how well Hawg recovered after his surgery. By day 3 after surgery (today), the bruising around Hawg's incision is almost completely gone. He has started playing with his toys again and wants to go on longer walks. He does not look like a dog that had major surgery three days ago. At Hawg's re-check after surgery, he was not running any fever and was as perky as ever. I would like to attribute Hawg's strong health and recovery to the fact that he had been on a steady regimen of StemPETS prior and right after his surgery.

If you have a dog or horse, how is your pet's health? StemPETS is a natural stem cell enhancer for your dog, and a great way to help them achieve optimal health. The tablets are chewable so you don't have to struggle with shoving a pill down your dog's throat. Better yet, the pills apparently taste great to the dogs, they eat the pills willingly, if not eagerly. Remember, as your pet ages, the amount of adult stem cells decreases. StemPETS supports your pet's ongoing health by supporting the natural release of your dog's adult stem cells from their bone marrow. You will be happy and your dogs will be very happy...and healthy.

If you have specific questions regarding StemPETS, please feel free to contact me at hawgwash1@yahoo.com.

Until tomorrow...

Update on our Sick Little Yorkie

Our Yorkie, Hawg went through surgery yesterday to remove some kidney stones from his bladder. I didn't sleep well all night on Thursday night, worrying about if I had made the right decision, if I had picked the right vet (he was the only one in a 50 mile radius..so that was sort of a no-brainer) and if I should have gotten a second opinion. It is probably very common for anyone who has to take care of a child, person or animal to second guess decisions that are a little risky. By Friday morning, I was almost a basket case, wondering if I did the right thing.

The Animal Hospital told me that Hawg would be out of surgery by noon, so of course, I called at 11:30 to see if he was out yet. My hands were sweating when I dialed their number. Imagine my stress when they told me he hadn't even gotten into surgery yet. They probably had some other emergencies that took priority, but I was even more worried, because my waiting wasn't close to being over. The nurse did tell me to call back by 2 pm to see how he was doing, she was sure he would be out by then. Two hours can be an eternity for someone worrying...

At 1:30 I received a call from the Animal Hospital. My heart leapt into my throat, I figured something went terribly wrong, but was glad to hear the nurse on the other line tell me Hawg came through surgery just fine, but there were some complications...minor, and fixed, but complications all the same. He had not 1 but 3 kidney stones lodged in his ureter. Prior to the surgery, they had tried to flush the stone back into the kidney, to no avail. So the vet had to open part of his "wanker" (this is a 'G' rated blog...;-0) to get out the stones. It turns out that the vet removed a total of 7 kidney stones versus the 5 we had originally seen in the X-ray. That really was the only complication. Hawg came through the surgery fine, but they wanted to keep him overnight in case of any complications.

Well, after much worrying on my part, I called the Animal Hospital to find out if I could still pick Hawg up today. I worried that something bad happened overnight, and wanted to know for sure if he really would be OK. They did confirm that I could come and get Hawg shortly. You can bet I jumped right on the bike and hustled my little butt right over to the animal hospital. By the time I got there, I was a nervous wreck. The nurse told me it would be a few more minutes before they could get him ready to see me.

Next thing I know, I hear this noise, and here is Hawg, wiggling like mad to get to me. Boy did that do my heart good. He was as wiggly as usual. Then I looked quickly at what I thought would be a relatively small incision. I probably should not have done that, but I wanted to see what we had to deal with. Poor Hawg, it looks like he has about 5-6 stitches (I couldn't really count that well) running along the side of his "wanker" and a few stitches where his kidneys were. I am not sure if there are more stitches, his hair is pretty matted and still a bit messy, so until I can bathe him, I am not sure how many more stitches there are. My bet is he has probably a total of 10 stitches in a 6 pound little Yorkie. No wonder he was a bit sore. To top that all off, because they had tried to flush the kidney stones back into the kidney, he had been catheterized too, so he was bruised a bunch too. Poor little guy...

How many guys are squirming uncomfortably right now? Steve did the same thing when I tried to tell him what they did to his little Hawg. As it stands, Steve tried to look at the incision, and turned at least 10 shades of white, cringed and ran off. Some support system... ;-0 Glad I don't have to clean the area yet. The good news is that on the request of the Surgeon, we will be staying through Monday, so he can check Hawg out and be sure he is healing OK. Then it will be 10 days before the stitches can be removed. We will have to find another vet to do that, there is no way even I would want to try to remove stitches in Hawg's most private parts...heaven forbid if I twitch and nick him...(OK, you guys squirming again?).

Anyway, Hawg is back with us and on the mend. We are striving to keep him quiet and not jump so he doesn't pull anything. Gypsy is glad to have him back, but she thinks he smells funny and she is a bit jealous of the attention we are providing Hawg. He gets picked up if he wants up on the couch, and Gypsy still has to jump up herself. The good news for Gypsy is that she still gets walked by herself. I do not want to be walking two dogs at the same time when Hawg is still healing. I am trying to give Gypsy extra attention, so she won't feel too left out.

Hopefully in the next 14 days, Hawg will be back to his old self and this will just be a bad dream to him. Looking forward to quick healing. The even better news is that the vet said it was OK for us to start giving Hawg his StemPet immediately. He took it with no problems. I will probably double his dose during these early healing days, so that he can heal a little quicker. I will let you know how well that works. I still believe that StemPet kept Hawg from getting major infections while he was trying to pass those kidney stones. He could have been in bad shape by the time I brought him in. The surgeon kept telling me how impressed he was with Hawg's overall condition. Gotta thank StemPet for that to some degree...

Please let me know if you have any questions about the StemPet products or the human products, StemEnhance.

Until tomorrow...

What to talk about?

Well, tonight I have been struggling for the last few hours, actually all day long, trying to find something interesting to talk with you about. I usually start each day with the question, "What to talk about?" and usually have something already on my mind or have made notes of talking points. Today, I have drawn a complete blank. You may find this funny, but I already have a blog topic for tomorrow and for Sunday, but have still been struggling today.

Perhaps my biggest issue was my concern about our Yorkie, Hawg. He went into surgery this afternoon, and I got a call from the vet later in the day saying he was fine and recovering. If all goes well, we get to pick him up tomorrow around noon. They warned me that he is in pain, and will be in pain for a while. I don't know about you guys, but looking into a dog's eyes knowing that they are hurting, just breaks my heart. Hopefully I am worrying about nothing. The only reason I knew something was wrong with Hawg was because he wasn't urinating, he didn't indicate any major pain. He is one tough little bugger...

But after my all-consuming worry about our Yorkie, we also have the Gold Wing Road Riders Association Georgia Wing Fling to work at. The people are great, and the weather has been much better than we have dealt with in the last two weeks. The only wrinkle in this show has been the brief rain-shower that occurred (not on the weather report...need to have a chat with the weatherman on that one...) late this afternoon. If the weather man listened to me, we can't have rain until after the event shuts down, after 5 pm. But nobody talked to me about that rain shower. I will have to have a chat with someone about that. I will not allow another recurrence of a rain shower until after 5 tomorrow afternoon...my rules...

So, as you can see, again, I have nothing to say...(not) Hopefully this was a little entertaining. Stay posted, I will have interesting topics for the next two days....

Until tomorrow...

Sick Pup - Update

I just wanted to let you all know that our dog, Hawg, is doing much better today. Yesterday I was pretty brief about him being sick. He was having lots of trouble swallowing and I was worried that he had something stuck in his throat. I tried everything to ease his throat pain, to no avail. Since he looked uncomfortable only when swallowing, and not all the time, we decided to keep him calm and watch closely. If his swallowing got worse, we were all heading to the emergency vet.

To backtrack a bit, when Hawg doesn't want to play, you know he is not feeling well. Last evening, he was very listless and it looked like he was having a terrible time swallowing. Luckily, the calmer he was, the less he struggled with swallowing. We did get him to take a treat that seemed to go down OK, so we knew there was no big obstruction. My biggest fear was that he swallowed a cactus spine (he loves to eat the spines...don't ask me why) and it had somehow lodged in his throat. That would have definitely required a vet visit. But, since he did not have swallowing issues when he was resting, I suspected it was not a spine, or if it was, it was no longer lodged, but may have scratched or damaged his throat.

I tore the house apart looking for anything that may have caused this problem, but could not find anything that was partially ingested. I still have no idea what happened yesterday, but it scared the daylights out of me.

I spent most of the night just watching him for any significant changes to behavior, any indications that his pain was getting worse. By this morning, he was bright-eyed and playing again with no indication that his throat was sore at all. After some coaxing, he did eat his regular food and did drink water. By this evening, you could not tell he was feeling poorly yesterday. I am grateful that this crisis was averted.

Talk to you all later...

Sick Puppy

Hi Guys, I know I committed to writing a daily Blog, but today, after all the work we did, we have a sick pup on our hands. I can't focus on writing anything really pertinent because I am worried about our dog. I don't want to waste your time talking drivel but didn't want you thinking I just blew my promise off. I will provide an update for you all tomorrow, hopefully everything will be better. Hawg (the dog) seems to be doing a tad better, but again my focus is on him (no reflection on you guys - in the generic sense) and not on writing anything useful or funny. Sorry.

Until tomorrow...

The joys of Pet Ownership

Here I was planning on talking about the water shortage, and I encountered something funny (in my view) that I would rather chat about.

Some of you may not find this too funny, you have to have pets to really chuckle over this. If you are easily grossed out, I might suggest you do not read further. For those of you who could use a laugh, understand the joy of pet ownership, or are just curious, please read on. (I will discuss the water shortage in tomorrow's blog, and yes it will post tomorrow since I am writing it today...HA!!)

If you didn't know, we have two small dogs, one is a Yorkie, the other is supposed to be a Yorkie but is not...by a long stretch. Well, traveling in a motor home, you tend to have everything close and easily accessible, including trash and eating utensils. Since we drove over 1,100 miles from Ruidoso, NM to Reno, NV, we didn't stop to cook, but stopped at McDonald's for our meals.

I didn't realize how enticing McDonald's food was to our dogs, but as we were eating, these guys (in the generic sense) were staring at us with their button brown eyes, looking generally pathetic. We did not give them any of our food, that is not good for the dogs, but they were sure staring at us hard, wishing us to drop something, anything, on the ground for them to vacuum up. After we finished eating our meal, we did give the dogs their dog treats, so they were not left out of the eating.

What I didn't know (or think of) at the time was that the dogs had eyes for anything that may have some McDonald's scent/flavor on it. We threw our trash in the waste can, and the dogs were smart enough not to tear open the boxes the hamburgers and fries come in. What I didn't know is that the little Yorkie snagged a hand towel that we wiped our mouths and hands on.

I didn't know he grabbed the towel because he ate the whole thing. I know he ate the whole thing because the whole thing came out his other end yesterday afternoon. The poor little guy (I should NOT be feeling sorry for him, but I did) was struggling to go to the bathroom so with much dread, I bent over to provide assistance. My goodness, I kept pulling and pulling and pulling this white towel material out of his rear. I can only think he was trying to pre-package his poo. It was gross, but I couldn't stop laughing because he just kept waiting for me to help him out of his predicament. Finally the paper broke off and he was a happy puppy.

When I told Steve what happened, he almost bust a gut laughing. If I had timed it correctly, I probably could have gotten him to blow juice out of his nose he was laughing so hard. Our little Yorkie is none the worse for the wear, but you can bet that I am now very careful about the trash. I think we are going to invest in a trash can that has a lid the dogs can't open. We were lucky this time, who knows what else they can get into that wouldn't have such a simple solution.

So, a word to the wise, if you have pets, be very careful about where your trash is stored. Even if there is no evidence that they go sniffing around the trash, there is a very high likelihood that they will get into the trash. If they are very smart dogs, they will hide the evidence that they were trash digging, and then it may be too late. I am grateful that our Yorkie has a very good digestive tract.

Tomorrow you will get to read a little more about my thoughts on our current water shortage and what we are doing to help. Until then...