Pre traumatic stress syndrome

It's been just over two weeks since I got home from my Cincinnati trip, and we almost lost Miss Fern.  What was supposed to be a great home coming ended up being pretty traumatic for G and me.

My flight was four hours late, so by the time I arrived home it was dark out, but of course I was so happy to see Fern I let her out to roam a bit. She kept talking and talking and talking--I talked back, and laughed thinking that she seemed happy to see me. Yes this is a house chicken we are talking about. One of the most under appreciated and misunderstood domesticated animals. The next morning Captain Jack, Kitten and Fern roamed while we got breakfast and coffee, but unlike her usual routine she did not sit with me on the couch while I checked email and weather forecasts.  She was very obviously 'nest searching', what a hen does when she needs to lay an egg. This was not a good sign. It was funny, but foreboding.

Perhaps a real writer would be able to conjure up the words and feelings of past events and write them down, but for me I tend to lose them if I don't write them down right away. What music and light and a certain breeze bring to me are lost.  The same could be said for words about grief. I seem always to be in some level of conflict with myself--the training of a vet tech in which you are required to put aside your feelings and think clearly and act quickly, in order to save the animal who is in distress, and comfort the client. On the other side, I have far too many experiences with loss and the ways leading to death that my anticipation of the grief is almost as bad as the grief itself.  

When I lost my beautiful German shepherd Gwen six years ago it was after only a month of knowing we would lose her.  After eleven years....At least we had that little bit of time after her diagnosis. I really should have written down the events of two weeks ago in the moment, not now.

Anyone who has spent a night or days waiting for a beloved pet to die will know what I'm talking about.

After breakfast I spent several hours outside feeding, cleaning, mucking.  I came in around noon for a break, and Fern had eyes closed, and was standing very still, would not vocalize or respond to us. This bird is normally very interactive---she knows her name and other greeting type words, and responds with vocalizations.  Some folks might have a hard time believing this, but it's all true.  I wish I had video of these sorts of interactions! Something was very obviously wrong, and she was getting worse and worse.  I'm lucky that I have some medications for her, so gave her meloxicam right away.  It was pretty evident that she was in a horrendous amount of pain.  The meloxicam didn't touch the pain at all. I couldn't get in touch with our vet. Fern could not open her eyes. She had tremors in her head, open mouth breathing, and occasionally would drop a wing down low and shake violently.  I had never seen symptoms like this.  We were scared and confused!  

Occam's razor --  focus!

G and I talked it over, the usual type of conversation we have when we are trying to figure something out. It's a rather scientific type of discussion--the type I'm sure visitors have been privy to on occasion.  Sometimes you need to work through the variables like a flow chart, ones and zeros, however you may prefer to label it, but on a farm it needs to be quick, so you can then make the best decisions you can possibly make. 

We went through the obvious--reproductive accident, poisoning (we have a few house plants, the occasional avocado piece could fall on the floor, something neurologic was obvious with the tremors, and every time I touched her she would tremble violently like a seizure).

But with Occam's razor in mind the only thing we could accept was that she'd suffered some horrible reproductive 'accident', like the one that killed the first hen I ever lost.  It was plausible that there could be several factors involved, but seeing her completely normal and then so obviously in distress really pointed to that one terrible thing-one we could do little to fix.

I gave her some opiate pain medication when I didn't think I should wait any longer. I'm lucky I have been scripted this medication by our vet for when she deems necessary. Later when we talked she told me to double the dose. She probably thought Fern was going to die based on my description.
 We did too.

We were struggling with the hope that she'd magically get through it, yet having seen so many animals die I was really thinking that she was going to continue to decline.  G agreed.  

We left Fern in front of the wood stove on a large sheet, and turned off the lights.  We tried to watch a movie in the other room but kept pausing it to go and check on her to see if she was still alive.  Between that and my constant tears I really don't remember much of the movie we watched. Part of me was wondering if I should have taken her to the emergency clinic for euthanasia.

I slept on the couch beside her that night, waiting for the eventual thrashing sounds of agonal death.  It sounds morbid when I write it, but that's what happens when an animal dies.  It's what happened with Lorpie, when I had her in the truck to bring her for euthanasia and as g was saying good bye she suddenly started looking around her very distressed. I said 'she's going' and g said 'get her out!I pulled her out of her cage and we collapsed on the driveway together as she started to tremble and gasp.  A few moments later she was gone.  That's what happens. Animals just don't close their eyes and go peacefully.

At around 6 am I used my cell phone light to check on her, half expecting her to be dead.  But she moved her head when I said her name, and even in the pitch black I could tell she was more mentally alert. I crawled into bed with G and told him that Fern was still alive.  It was a sad night for both of us, the confusion and shock of it all. I wanted to comfort him too!

An hour or so later I got up--it was still dark outside.  Fern had her eyes open, could move slowly and was trying to vocalize.  I called for G, and he came to see her.  We were even more confused since we were so sure she would die, and how could a bird make this sort of turn around??

On her blanket were pools of blood and some bits of tissue that looked like a latch or lash egg.  So it was a reproductive thing....

I took her to our vet friend and we gave her a bunch of sub cutaneous fluids for support.  Other than continuing her pain medication and adding antibiotics in case she'd ruptured her oviduct there was nothing to do but wait--and get her a hormone injection.

I drove directly to our other vet to get the hormone injection.  They said they wanted to wait until a stronger medication would arrive in a few days, and if it didn't arrive, we'd do the injection. I was not happy with that treatment plan at all, but I couldn't force them to give it to us of course. No one but G knew how bad she'd looked the night before, and that her next episode if she had one could kill her.  I'm still developing relationships with these vets so I really don't know how much they trust my assessments. 

Fern lived, and returned to normal. The hormone injection didn't work. Yesterday after I picked up G at the airport we returned home to find her looking almost the same as before.....closing her eyes, not moving, no vocals. She was having trouble breathing. We knew it was reproductive again.

I brought her to our vet friend after hours and Fern was immediately put in the oxygen cage.  "Fern looks like sh*t!" she said.  I don't exaggerate.

Her xray showed a large egg lodged up in her small pelvis.  She is a small bodied hen, not really well built for a layer.  We anesthetized her and tried to reach the egg so we could break it, making it easier to pass.  We couldn't reach it.

We woke her up and I took her home, kept her quiet and warm and hoped for the best.  The fear was that the egg would be blocking urates from her kidneys, and she would die overnight from that condition.

Of course I had a terrible sleep...I got up in the dark and went to see her--I thought I saw the silhouette of a prone figure, so for a second I thought she had died...But she was laying down resting, probably exhausted.  No egg, still breathing hard and not looking well.

A few hours later I had finally gotten back to sleep and G came to wake me up--Fern had passed a huge soft shelled egg! It was surprising that we'd actually seen it on xray, since an egg that is not fully calcified can be tougher to see.

It took her several days to return to normal.  She got the hormone shot she needed, and then developed a huge hematoma. All of this going on while we have another hen who is facing euthanasia in the next day or so, or a slim chance of a life saving surgery.  Unfortunately the xray of Miss Cayenne the gold laced wyandotte isn't diagnostic enough, so we don't know what's in her belly, but it's huge and making it difficult for her to breath.

Such is life with an aging flock.




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It's New Year's Day.

G has a few days left of holidays before returning to work in the city.  I know he's not really looking forward to it.  We've had a great holiday together.

Before he goes back we will head out to our favourite Indian restaurant just over the border in Wisconsin for part 1 of our annual farm planning meeting.  It's just a fun way to get out for a nice lunch together and talk and dream and plan and reflect on all that we've learned and built here together.

It's also a good time to laugh and remember all of the amazing creatures who share our home here.  Because despite the occasional traumas involved, it sure wouldn't be very much fun without them.