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Sep. 8th, 2008 10:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pacificpikachuI got in a young robin quite a while ago in distressing condition. One of our new rehabbers who lives over an hour away from the main part of the group got the bird in, and she was...well, new, so she did a preliminary check up and thought the bird was fine. She kept the bird for a week and fed her and whatnot. Well, she finally brings the bird to me because I had a bunch of robins at the time and says "You know, I thought the bird was okay, but now I think there might be something wrong with her leg..."
I did a check-up and it turns out the little robin had a break in her joint, which can be a death sentence for birds a lot of the time. :/ Not only that, but bird fractures heal very quickly, so her sitting there with the fracture for a week was bad news. I took the baby robin to the vet, expecting a certain death sentence. Instead, Dr. Lund splinted her all up and gave me some instructions.
I ended up passing the robin to one of our new-but-completely-awesome rehabbers because I was going on vacation. Janet took a vested interest in this robin's recovery and decided to keep her even when I returned. She took her to the vet a few weeks later and got a pretty uncertain diagnosis--basically, Dr. Lund didn't think the bird could ever live in the wild and therefore she'd need to be euthanized. Janet and I talked, though, and she didn't give up. She started doing physical therapy on the leg in hopes that it would recover. She even brought the robin with her on her vacations to work with the leg.
Improvement was extremely slow. In the meantime, though, Janet got other, younger baby robins in, and this robin took them in and helped raise them. Thus, she earned the name Mama-san (note: amusingly enough, Janet named her this, not me). She began to improve more.
Just yesterday, Mama-san and her two adopted babies were released together. Her leg never improved all the way, but it is good enough for her to hopefully make it out there, and if nothing else she gets to be free after all these months of captivity, cages, and flight cages.
It's amazing how, sometimes, you can swear that an animal or person isn't going to get better and it's just not going to work out--but if you're patient and diligent, sometimes amazing things happen. I had a robin a few years back that defied the odds like this as well--he had a fairly severe spinal injury and a huge, deep gash down his whole body, yet somehow he managed to hang out and recover and be released after months of me trying to decide whether to put him down or not. I'm really proud of Janet for sticking with Mama-san no matter how many times she was told it was helpless. She had her for several months, which is quite a bit longer than we have most rehab birds.
Anyway, I just thought that was sweet and I love happy wildlife rehab stories. They never fail to make me smile. :)
Today has been...quite the chaotic day, hahaha.
So I woke up at 9:30 AM, and Mom and I took off for the Nevada County campus of my college to try to add an art class. Unfortunately, the art class was full, so that failed. .__.
Mom was completely stressing out because if I'm not a full-time student, I'm not covered by health insurance. And I have a lot of medical problems, so that's a necessity. Basically, it's really difficult to add classes now because it's past the add/drop deadline so figuring out a way to replace the 5 units I dropped was extremely difficult.
Thankfully, my Zoology teacher from last semester is awesome and is allowing me to do a late add to her online Mammalogy class. Not only is it online and therefore much more convenient, it's Mammalogy, which is fun and interesting and will look good on my vet school transcripts! :D So I'm formally adding that tomorrow and then I have to get caught up on the lectures I missed. Shouldn't be bad at all.
I am also taking a "class" (two seminars and a field trip) on the ecology of waterfowl in November. Should be totally awesome as well. Trying to pressure my mom into taking it, haha.
I still needed one credit, so I'm going to take a quick online class...on taking online classes. Starts in late October, goes until mid-November, shouldn't be bad at all.
I'm glad I got it figured out--it was pretty baffling for a while there.
Also, naturally, during this chaotic and relatively moneyless time before my sales post stuff arrives, one of my collecting grails shows up. Top-five-most-wanted-items type of thing. :O It ends in four days, so I'm hoping to be able to scrape together enough for it and that the competition won't be insanely stiff for it. We'll see--wish me luck! I need it. ;___;
Speaking of grails, I got one of mine in the mail today! The mail lady pulled up with a HUUUGE box and I knew what it was immediately. GIANT SKYMIIIIN! She's soooo cute and big and heavy and soft and I'm in love. ♥__♥ I'm trying to decide on a name for her and photos will follow...sometime soon-ish.
I did a check-up and it turns out the little robin had a break in her joint, which can be a death sentence for birds a lot of the time. :/ Not only that, but bird fractures heal very quickly, so her sitting there with the fracture for a week was bad news. I took the baby robin to the vet, expecting a certain death sentence. Instead, Dr. Lund splinted her all up and gave me some instructions.
I ended up passing the robin to one of our new-but-completely-awesome rehabbers because I was going on vacation. Janet took a vested interest in this robin's recovery and decided to keep her even when I returned. She took her to the vet a few weeks later and got a pretty uncertain diagnosis--basically, Dr. Lund didn't think the bird could ever live in the wild and therefore she'd need to be euthanized. Janet and I talked, though, and she didn't give up. She started doing physical therapy on the leg in hopes that it would recover. She even brought the robin with her on her vacations to work with the leg.
Improvement was extremely slow. In the meantime, though, Janet got other, younger baby robins in, and this robin took them in and helped raise them. Thus, she earned the name Mama-san (note: amusingly enough, Janet named her this, not me). She began to improve more.
Just yesterday, Mama-san and her two adopted babies were released together. Her leg never improved all the way, but it is good enough for her to hopefully make it out there, and if nothing else she gets to be free after all these months of captivity, cages, and flight cages.
It's amazing how, sometimes, you can swear that an animal or person isn't going to get better and it's just not going to work out--but if you're patient and diligent, sometimes amazing things happen. I had a robin a few years back that defied the odds like this as well--he had a fairly severe spinal injury and a huge, deep gash down his whole body, yet somehow he managed to hang out and recover and be released after months of me trying to decide whether to put him down or not. I'm really proud of Janet for sticking with Mama-san no matter how many times she was told it was helpless. She had her for several months, which is quite a bit longer than we have most rehab birds.
Anyway, I just thought that was sweet and I love happy wildlife rehab stories. They never fail to make me smile. :)
Today has been...quite the chaotic day, hahaha.
So I woke up at 9:30 AM, and Mom and I took off for the Nevada County campus of my college to try to add an art class. Unfortunately, the art class was full, so that failed. .__.
Mom was completely stressing out because if I'm not a full-time student, I'm not covered by health insurance. And I have a lot of medical problems, so that's a necessity. Basically, it's really difficult to add classes now because it's past the add/drop deadline so figuring out a way to replace the 5 units I dropped was extremely difficult.
Thankfully, my Zoology teacher from last semester is awesome and is allowing me to do a late add to her online Mammalogy class. Not only is it online and therefore much more convenient, it's Mammalogy, which is fun and interesting and will look good on my vet school transcripts! :D So I'm formally adding that tomorrow and then I have to get caught up on the lectures I missed. Shouldn't be bad at all.
I am also taking a "class" (two seminars and a field trip) on the ecology of waterfowl in November. Should be totally awesome as well. Trying to pressure my mom into taking it, haha.
I still needed one credit, so I'm going to take a quick online class...on taking online classes. Starts in late October, goes until mid-November, shouldn't be bad at all.
I'm glad I got it figured out--it was pretty baffling for a while there.
Also, naturally, during this chaotic and relatively moneyless time before my sales post stuff arrives, one of my collecting grails shows up. Top-five-most-wanted-items type of thing. :O It ends in four days, so I'm hoping to be able to scrape together enough for it and that the competition won't be insanely stiff for it. We'll see--wish me luck! I need it. ;___;
Speaking of grails, I got one of mine in the mail today! The mail lady pulled up with a HUUUGE box and I knew what it was immediately. GIANT SKYMIIIIN! She's soooo cute and big and heavy and soft and I'm in love. ♥__♥ I'm trying to decide on a name for her and photos will follow...sometime soon-ish.
