My perfect Pickle bird passed away last week and I want to share her story.
The first half of my post, I'm going to talk about [my best friend, Pickle.](https://imgur.com/a/bWEkQU7) The second half will be the story of her illness, which I hope may help someone in the future.
Pickle has been my best friend for 17 years. We met the summer I volunteered at an exotic bird store as a 12 year old. Part of my job was hand taming the babies, so I regularly took them out and handled them so they would be sweet pets. Pickle always gave me trouble and jumped off my hand, running and hiding and generally getting herself into a pickle. She became my special project bird and I started calling her “Pickle”. In the fall and back in school, I was depressed thinking about her at that store, destined to become a part of some other strange family. After what I imagine were a lot of heartfelt pleas, reasoning, and ramblings from me, eventually my parents gave me the green light to buy her with my saved allowance and take her home. It was the best decision they could have made.
Obviously I’m shattered inside and overflowing with grief, but I’m also aware of the immense amount of gratitude I feel. I’m grateful that my parents let a barely-13 year old girl take on an exotic animal as a responsibility. I’m grateful that I got 17 years of joy with my best friend. I’m grateful that my parents gave Pickle an extremely loving home when life decided that I couldn’t take her to live with me as an adult. I’m grateful that she loved my parents as much as they loved her. I’m grateful that we got this extra year of life with Pickle after she was diagnosed with a fatal form of egg binding last year. I’m grateful that Pickle waited until seconds after I arrived at the emergency vet from across the state to pass away in my hands. I’m just so grateful for Pickle.
Thank you, green bird. I love you. I miss you.
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Last year in June 2018, my Pickle (16 y.o. female quaker) was diagnosed with a weird form of egg binding our vet called "egg mash". Before the vet trip, we noticed that she was having diarrhea and straining to poop, occasionally leading to a mass of poop dried in her vent that needed to be washed away. It turned out that she was producing partially-formed eggs that were building up in her reproductive tract and not leaving her body. This buildup became a 20-30 g mass (for reference, her normal weight was 95 g) that was probably infected. She was given months to live. She's been my best friend since I was 12 and I was absolutely gutted. I desperately searched the internet for similar stories and didn't find anything which is why I want to share it here.
After that initial visit, she was put on several treatments for inflammation and infection. We had to administer the medicine as liquid measured in a syringe. One of them she actually liked the taste of and would eat it right out of the syringe, but the other we needed to force feed her which sucked. Sometimes she would eat it mixed with egg yolk though. The medicine gave her very watery poops for a while which we think was the liquid from her egg mass leaving her body, so it was actually a good thing. She still had occasional diarrhea, but the imminent danger seemed to have passed after she finished her meds and her weight dropped to just over 100 g which was more normal for her. Our vet wanted to give her a treatment to shut down her ovaries to minimize the risk of another bout of egg mash, so she received a few doses of something called Lupron over the course of several months. Some weeks after the first dose, her weight started to climb. Scared of more egg mash, we took her to the vet just to find out that the egg mass wasn't growing, it was just Pickle putting on hormone-related fat. My petite little bird had to be put on a restricted diet to try to keep her weight in check over the next year, only getting two teaspoons of pellets a day in addition to her diet of fresh fruits, veggies, and other healthy foods we had in the house. Hormones are a powerful thing though, and her weight climbed to 155 g. She was ravenous all the time, obviously due to her shift in hormones from the Lupron shots. She was still a happy bird though, and we treasured that extra year we had with her. On July 12, 2019, my coworker interrupted some sensitive work I was doing with a note telling me my father had called the lab about Pickle. I had been dreading that day and knew exactly what it meant. Apparently Pickle had seemed completely fine that morning, eating lunch with my mom like normal. She very suddenly became lethargic in the early afternoon and began laboring to breathe. My mom was terrified and rushed her to the emergency vet in a towel on her lap. I left work and rushed the 80 miles to the vet while they kept her on oxygen to extend her time until I could say goodbye. My husband was driving and I sprinted the last two blocks to the vet while he was stuck at a very busy left turn. When they handed her to me in that towel, I had just moments with her until she passed. A thousand things could have gone differently and stolen those moments from me. I'm so grateful she waited for me. I still can't believe she's gone.
Our birds are so, so special. Do me a favor and give yours extra cuddles and loves, and remember how lucky you are to have each other in your lives. Gratitude.