We went to the vet today... semi-annual visit for my little senior-psittacine...
It's such a marvel to watch a maestro like our world-class avian vet in action. He and his staff totally take charge, examine, evaluate.
The Rb is in great health.
Dr. Lindstrom reported on some astounding recent advances in avian medicine at the big 2016 conference. Some innovations are actually having profound and expanding implications for assessment and therapy in HUMAN medicine. Something called The African Grey Project is contributing to a huge outreach into human biomedical research.
Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyy... of particular fascination to me was the maturing awareness of the advantages of captivity (no predation, good nutrition, safety) versus disadvantages (lack of flight, sunlight, natural trace nutrients).
Dr. L. gave me some specific ideas for beefing my skinny Rb up. I'll search for that thread ON SKINNY BIRDS and hope to update it. Overview... green chiles, while healthy, are low-cal and very filling... I should limit them to one small chile a day... beans and brown rice are good, healthy, beef-up foods. Amazingly, I need to lessen those fab chiles.
I feel great. It's all about... staying open, learning, being flexible. None of us live forever, but it feels good to keep learning.
We also discussed end-of-life options... various aternatives for accidents, illness, euthanasia, post-MY-death options... SPECIFICS... wills. I finally got brave. Very personal stuff. It's good to have a "team".
On the way home, MC Rickeybird sang his own bizarro re-mix of a local window replacement commercial over and over... "I love my windows! Winnnnn winnnn winnnnndowszszsz! I I I love..... winnnnnn winnnnnn winn!" Lightened the stress.
The Take-away. I'm so glad I TALKED about all of this. With my trusted, trusted vet.
