AN ONGOING STORY OF A LITTLE AFRICAN GREY CALLED ‘SKIEWIE’. PART 2

written by Mommy Marinda Jooste

Breaking News.  SKIEWIE IS A LITTLE GIRL!!!


Once home, we decided that SKIEWIE would be a special needs little girl for the rest of her life and that she would need a lot of love and attention.  Her road to recovery would be a long one and we decided to adopt her as a new member of our family.
The road ahead was very unclear and scary.  We were unsure whether the vet would be able to save Skiewie’s leg.  A group of friends started a prayer group for her and every day she learned new things. Within a few days she started walking in a style of her own, swinging her broken leg out as she moved. She was a very happy little bird who was surrounded with toys and she loved them all.  I spent most of my time on the floor with her, playing toys!!!  
Skiewie absolutely loved the camera and would strike up a pose for us every time she saw it.  This helped a lot as we needed daily pictures of her to monitor her feather development to check whether she was developing normally.  Every new feather was celebrated as it gave us new hope.  Each night as I went to bed I would ponder and wonder if she would ever be able to walk normally again.
22 November 2019
Skiewie was doing really well , learning to walk with her cast.  Then the day came for her next checkup with the vet.  We were so sure that the leg had begun to heal.
She was. sedated in order that the cast could be removed.  Then my world came crashing down…. The first thing we saw was that the bone had torn her skin (we had not noticed this on the first visit because of all her swelling).  Through this broken wound we could see how bad the break was. Pieces of bone had been completely broken off and we could tell that this little leg could never heal.  The leg was set in a new cast in order to secure it, as we figured the way forward in this difficult situation.  As they tried to wake her from her sedation she struggled to breath on her own. The vet needed to make a quick decision and assisted her lungs to breath by means of a breathing tube.  I could not hold back the tears as I cried out to God to save my feather baby that I had already grown so close to.  Slowly she started showing signs of life and within a few minutes behaved as if nothing had happened and even posed for a few pictures.  I was so grateful to God for giving her a second chance.
The decision was made that we would have to amputate the leg to give her this second chance at life!  Blood work was done to check whether she would be strong enough to get through this big operation.   At that stage it was not sure how high up the leg the amputation would be done.  This decision would be made once she was on the operating table. The decision was taken to wait a couple of weeks until she had regained more strength.
TO BE CONTINUED/….

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