By Elizabeth Young | Founder, Executive Director
Bonus Match Happening Now
Good Morning. Right now (for real) but only while funds last (and they go fast!) you can make a much needed donation in support of our work and it will be matched with a 30% bonus up to $1000 per donor. Please- if you can- make a donation right now! This is the last bonus match opportunity of 2015. Here's the link. Thank you!
Blossom's Ordeal
Blossom is one of the many birds that your support has enabled us to save.
The extent of Blossom's injury required that she be sedated so that her wound could be surgically cleaned and repaired. When she was anthestized and intubated, it was discovered that she had a ruptured air sac as well (revealed by the way her body inflated abnormally with breathing support). She recuperated in the hospital for a couple of days, receiving supportive care. She had come in emaciated and, even though her scalp was back in place and she could see again, she wasn't eating. But she was super thirsty and had polyuria (excessively watery poop). Blood tests came back normal and didn't reveal any answers. In a couple of days, she began eating and they were able to discontinue the tube feeding. The thirst and polyuria continued.
I went out to Oakley on August 18th to pick up Blossom and as soon as I met her, I realized that the name I had originally given her- prior to meeting her and when I needed something quick for our and the vets' records- Rex- was so wrong as to need changing (something I hate to do because it creates extra work and potential confusion). She's a delicate, petite, shy little flower of a pigeon. I renamed her Blossom.
Once home and fostered with me, Blossom, on antibiotics and pain meds, was stable and her wound seemed to be healing but something else was going on. Her thirst and polyuria continued.
On 8/25, I did a routine weight check expecting to see that Blossom was gaining weight (she seemed to be eating well) but I was surprised to find that she had actually lost weight. I took her back in to see the vets the following day. She surprised me by eating almost non-stop the whole 54 miles. (She doesn't seem like the adventuresome type so I hadn't expected that a roadtrip would spark her appetite but it did.)
Dr. Speer looked through her matted feathers to reveal what was really happening with her scalp. While a portion of the reattachment was healing well, there were places that had reopened. He checked the wound for necrotic tissue and infection but found none. She received topical Lidocaine to numb her scalp and a few new sutures to help close the wound and speed healing. Blossom was an incredibly brave patient throughout the procedure.
The vets didn't see any obvious explanation for Blossom's weight loss, thirst and polyuria and recommended I discontinue the anitbiotics and Meloxicam in case they were contributing.
Back home fostered with me, Blossom was doing OK. Her weight got back up to where it was (though still too thin) but her thirst was, if anything, increasing. She will drink an entire huge bowl of water (2 cups) in 24 hours. We went back out to Medical Center for Birds on September 10th for more follow up. Through all the years and so many pets and so many pigeons and doves rescued, I've worked with a lot of vets, many of them truly wonderful, but none more supportive, responsive, helpful, generous and dedicated than those at Medical Center for Birds. They work tirelessly to help us (and so many others) and that's why we go to such lengths to get our birds all the way out to Oakley to see them whenever we can. They also do everything possible to help us stretch our dollars as far as they will go but even so, medical care is expensive and Blossom's bill, despite the discounts, was already more than $1200, before her re-hospitalization.
This time, Blossom stayed at Medical Center for Birds for four days. Her blood work still looks normal but her radiographs are anything but. Her right kidney is nowhere to be found. Her right air sacs are displaced by her skewed GI tract which is likely adhering to the body wall. She's got a lower respiratory infection suspected to involve Aspergillosis. I think she's also got a lot of scar tissue and internal damage from the predator-attack. I picked her up and brought her back home with me yesterday and she's very happy to be here. Almost as happy as I am to have her back. She's on meds and our hope is that with time and finesse, we can get her through this back to health. She ate and preened on the car ride home. She wants to live.
Blossom, this brave young survivor of pigeon racing, barely six months old, was lost and starving to death before she was attacked and nearly killed by the predator that scalped her and nearly killed her. Pigeon racers say, "let the (training) basket and races cull for you". To them, birds like Blossom, who get lost, hurt or killed while being flown, are worthless. As if Blossom's life means any less to her than theirs does to them. It breaks my heart to think of all that birds like Blossom endure. They suffer a lot. Blossom is one of the lucky ones. Thank you for helping us to do this special work. We are making a difference, both for the individual birds like Blossom, and for our communities who are learning the truth about these birds.
Please make a donation right now before bonus match funds run out. Every dollar helps and every life matters. Blossom and all of us thank you for your compassion.
Thank you.
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