We don't really know Bandit's birthdate: we bought him on December 28, 1994, and we knew he was at the Aviarium a few weeks earlier, a just-weaned fledgling, because we had seen him there. So basically I tried to pick out a date I would remember.

(Thankfully James felt sorry for this poor little baby bird alone in his cage looking all skinny and scared. I didn't want to take him home at the time; the apartment complex we were in was going to the dogs. We had the thumping stereo next door, roaches in the kitchen, and the drunken maintenance man downstairs and I was scared every moment of every hour we were away that something was going to happen to him or Leia.)

Today Bandit is nine years old. (And God help me, I remember the date because it's Max and 99's anniversary...)

Budgies have been known to live to 15-20, at least American budgies. The English budgie, which is bred larger, tends to have a shorter lifespan and is more prone to tumors due to interbreeding. Bandit is half English and half American, and the hybrid vigor seems to have carried him along through some really bad times. He got sick the first spring we had him, when he was not even six months old, to the point where he was so dehydrated they had to infuse him. There have been other points in the last nine years where I thought I might have to put him to sleep.

In February of 2002 he started to have trouble breathing when he flew. The vet diagnosed either a liver problem or a tumor. To diagnose it completely, she would have needed to do a barium test on him: infuse him with barium and then take x-rays every five minutes, basically tying the little guy down to do it.

I never had the procedure done. At the time he was in such bad shape I didn't think he'd survive it. If it were a liver problem, she told me, it might--might, mind you--be cured with medication and a complete change of diet. Snort. At that point I'd been trying to change his diet for seven years; Bandit would rather starve than eat pellets--he had demonstrated it at least once a year. I tried cold turkey, gradual substitution...nothing.

If it were a tumor, nothing could be done due to his size, although she told me that a hospital in California was trying to come out with surgeries for small birds. If he were a big macaw or an African grey, with some substance, it would have been worth seeing the horrific numbers. But he's so small, so trusting...how could I put him through either procedure?

So I end up nursing him along. He pants a bit now, which I try to help by keeping a vaporizer running in his room when the window is closed. I must say that even with the air conditioning during the summer, he improved immediately upon cooler weather. He still loves to kiss and chirp and show off occasionally to the Pretty Bird in the downstairs bathroom mirror.

But he pants terribly just flying back to his cage and prefers to spend most of his nights snuggled up next to my neck, occasionally grinding his beak (a contented gesture in a bird) or softly chirping to me. Sometimes he still jumps on the keyboard when I'm on the computer and manages to type a letter. When I get home from work or an errand he burbles out a song to me--a "while you were out this is what happened" message, I believe, although he may be reciting me the latest storyline to Passions for all I know. :-)--but this is his biggest activity.

He's still eating well, takes an interest in things, and doesn't seem to be in pain, so I'm just going to leave him alone. At that 2002 vet visit, she told me he probably had less than a year to live. He's beaten her prediction by ten months so far.

I tell my mom Bandit's a lot like her, little and tough.

I'll keep caring for him till I can't anymore--and I pray to God often that when the end comes it will be easy for him, 'cause it sure won't be for me...

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 12:04:00 PM

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