Written October of 2005:
In March of 2003 Tuci was inadvertently exposed to some cold cream called Albolene - just briefly. I thought at the time that I had gotten him away from it in time, but in hindsight I did not. Tuci came down with symptoms which included bubbling around his eyes, and what looked like a cold.
Upon the first appearance of symptoms, I took Tuci to a vet called Martin Orr in Utah. At the time I took Tuci to the vet, the vet thought that Tuci had a cold, and he prescribed antibiotics. The vet did swab Tuci's mouth, and I believe based on the vets comments that he found a bit of the stuff Tuci was exposed to. But the vet never examined the swab really all that close. I was at the time desperately trying to think of a cause. The Albolene exposure never came to my mind at the time of the vet visits.
About six days after Tuci's initial exposure, he started to crash. I took Tuci to Mr. Orr again. Mr. Orr kept Tuci at his home and kept him warm. But all the time the vet saw no evidence of toxic exposure.
Tuci died the next morning. I was out on the road for my work. I cried harder than I have ever cried, for a long long time, while driving back toward my home. For several days I racked my brain about possible causes, and became highly concerned about the safety of my other birds. Then eventually I remembered the Albolene exposure which I thought I had stopped in time.
Anyway, I suppose I am primarily at fault for not proving a safer environment for Tuci. But I think the vet was also incompetent for being so unaware of seeing the clear signs of toxic exposure to a petroleum based product (I now recognize the symptoms Tuci had as being related to the exposure). It was the vets job to detect toxic exposure & he failed completely. Tuci spend his last days at my home being given antibiotic to treat a toxic exposure.
I don't think I deserved Tuci. I am angry at the vet who completely failed to diagnose Tuci properly, and I'm angry that I didn't think of the fucking brief yet apparently toxic Albolene exposure earlier.
Tuci's oak casket is still here in my bedroom. Lady, Tuci's former mate I'm sure wouldn't mind having bird sex again. She does enjoy hanging out with Coco, my remaining male Timneh, but they don't get it on like Tuci & Lady did.
On a strange side note, there is a bird club in Utah called the Wasatch Avian Education Society (WAES), and there are a few bird vets who helped found the club, and who apparently set up the club as a referral mechanism to help boost their businesses.
Once vet Orr failed to diagnose & save my bird (in the face of my own stupid lack of recalling the brief toxic exposure Tuci had), he gave a talk in April of 2004 at a WAES meeting. I'm glad I missed it, but I read an accounting of it in their newsletter.
Here FYI is an email I sent to their group about the issue, an email which was censored by the person who operates their email forum. I include all this information in the interest of preserving my accounting of what occurred...
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To selected members of the Wasatch Avian Education Society
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 21:48:01 -0600
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April meeting
I am glad that I missed the April meeting & that I did not
hear about it before hand.
Mr. Orr was the vet who failed to properly diagnose & save my Tuci.
It was a year ago April when Tuci died. I found it
particularly ghoulish to realize that someone in WAES had
planned to have him speak very near the year anniversary to
Tuci's death.
If the birds we associate with are merely chattel, or are
creatures who, when dead, we are told by those who failed to
save them to just "move on," then I suppose I would have no
grounds to speak. But they are not - not to me anyway.
I am placed in a particularly uncomfortable position by this
situation. WAES does some great things. But having [vet] advisors
who could be responsible for the deaths of some of the
member's birds (any of the vets could loose birds & their
level of responsibility in the deaths could vary from case
to case) - and then expecting that those members keep
showing up to meetings where those same vets are advisors is
ghoulish.
Also spending $300 on a necropsy isn't going to help bring
back your bird. Spending another $300 on a vet who didn't
know the importance of what was on the swab he had in his
hand (or on the top of my bird's mouth) isn't going to help
either. If your bird is dead, the vet won't offer a refund
(because their interest is primarily a monetary one & they
need all the money they can get so that they can build
themselves even more opulent clinics to draw in the
semi-rich bird keepers), and a refund won't bring back your
bird either.
I strongly suggest not having vets as advisors at all with
regard to the club. Vets could come and speak. But having
them as "advisors" creates apparent & factual conflicts of
interest. Also having them as advisors makes WAES a de facto
party to what the vets do, good or bad. Do you want your
club associated with the bad things the advisors do? And are
you going to be ghoulish enough to continue having scenarios
where advisors loose birds of a members & then expect that
the members continue supporting the club which is tied at
the hip to the vet advisor who failed to save the members
bird?
If the response is that the advisors can do no wrong, and
that no matter what wrong they do we're going to keep them -
then my response is: any group who fails to see & deal with
the faults in their leaders & to take appropriate action in
response verging on becoming a cult.
Jonathan
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The above message was censored & blocked on an email forum operated by WAES,
and so I sent it directly to selected members. Some of those members emailed me
back with notes of sympathy & understanding & agreement. In any case,
I've not returned to another WAES meeting since.
What is my responsibility in this whole matter?
Regardless of the answer Tuci is dead & I cannot bring him back. In one to forty years I'll be dead too - and I do take some comfort in that - that I will in the end have to die like my Tuci died - and hopefully I'll end up dying in some far more painful way than he did.
During his final six days he seemed mostly ok, mostly. Only on the last day did he crash. I guess that's the way birds are - resilient to the end - so as to not show any weakness.
And at night I still think about Tuci, and sometimes I dream about him. How he would come over for a treat. How he loved to hang out with Lady. And so on. But if I were the wrist cutting type, I'd probable do some cutting. But I do have some responsibility to my remaining four birds. They don't seem worse for the wear with Tuci's loss, but the social structure among them is now different.
And I'm glad that there are breeders of Timneh African Grey Parrots who are actually producing baby birds. I would like to help such people produce even more birds, and to especially help Timnehs in the wild in Africa.
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