By this week, Oliver had turned into Beth March. He seemed sometimes to gain ground—once, for instance, we uncovered him and found him up on the high perch that both Snowy and Schuyler had favored—but despite the antibiotics and the anti-inflammatory, he never seemed to totally gain. I was losing him little by little as each day went by. I think he's been sick for so long that, like Beth, he just couldn't fight the tide going out any longer. He'll pretty much just sit in my hand and fluff up and sleep.

Tuesday I totally forgot the appointment with the vet wasn't until Thursday and took the poor guy all the way over to Vinings. Dr. Bostick wasn't even in the office, but the nurse tried to cheer me up. On the way home, as we were turning off South Cobb Drive, a big wedge of geese flew overhead, right over our heads, honking loudly. I told Oliver maybe someday he could fly with the geese.

He was so droopy Wednesday morning, plus he had fallen off his perch at one point (I put some hand towels at the bottom of the cage so he had a soft place to land), but after eating some millet and being vaporized he seemed to perk up. And then I took a nap and when I got up to dress to pick up James, he was doing badly again. He bobbled when he sat on his perch, and otherwise he's asleep or sort of out of it.

He was so bad by the time I had to leave I took him with me because I thought he was dying. Cuddled him for the rest of the night. Instead of letting him sleep in the cage, I put food and water in the carry box and covered him with facecloths and he slept on my night table Wednesday night. At six he fell off the perch and I had to cuddle him before putting him back in and going back to bed.

Our appointment was today at eleven and I knew what I had to do. Oliver went flying with the geese at about 11:30 a.m. Dr. Bostick took one look at him—but she didn't have to, I already knew. They were all really sweet once they saw how bad he was.

Fly, little one, second star to the right and straight on til morning.


My dad died on August 1 in 1985. God, I hate summer.

Labels: birds, budgies, death, sickness

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:46:00 PM

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