|
Received a wonderful Email today from the Vet at Washington State University
Ms. Arevalo,
I tried to reach Dr. Womack and evidently he is out of the office today. I will try him back tomorrow, but wanted to email you my thoughts as well. There is a risk with anesthesia in one this young (as with all birds) and I completely understand his point that there is really not much to work with. I feel that you should look at this as a salvage procedure at this point. Our goal is not really to save Emily's leg (though that would be extremely nice), but to save her. We are several days out with this problem, there is almost certainly permanent damage done. Our chances at lessening the amount of permanent damage is better the sooner we correct the problem, but I think our chances at fixing the problem to a degree that Emily can have a good life are better if we wait and give Dr. Womack (or whoever does the surgery) more to work with. As a VERY last ditch effort, assuming that every thing else fails, there have been psittacine type birds that get along well with one leg. We have to watch the foot that they do have for developing sores or bumblefoot, but they do well because they can use their mouths to help them climb. I've even seen a report of a cockatoo (I believe) who lost both of her feet and legs and had an ingenious doctor/owner combo that came up with prosthetic feet for her. I think that we have allot of options open to us, but most of them would be better served (now) by waiting until she is better able to handle the anesthetic and until there is more for the surgeons to work with.
The reason to proceed quickly was to try and keep permanent damage from occurring. You've done that and haven't been able to correct the problem despite everything. I can't think of anything else to try at this stage of the game and am in agreement with Dr. Womack's plan as stated on your website. Again, I will try to get a hold of him tomorrow.
I commend you for your attempts to save this baby. You're right, most breeders would've put her down by day 8 or 9.
I will be in touch.
|
|
