The last weeks and days in the life of Phineas (2 of 3)

After Phinny’s visit to the vet, he was a bit subdued. He welcomed having his cheek feathers ruffled. At one point, he was on the Manor landing platform, leaning over as I ruffled his feathers & this went on for about 20 minutes – in fact, he almost fell asleep.

The following morning (Saturday), Phineas initially appeared fine as he came to the front perch to greet me, but as the morning wore on, he got more & more listless & barely ate anything. I was offering food to him. Sometimes he ate a few seeds. A couple of times he chomped on some carrot.

Despite being out of sorts, at around 15:30 he managed to have a jiggy-jiggy. It was not as long drawn out as usual but I took it as a positive sign, though he did have to rest afterwards. In the evening, he appeared to rally & ate some bedtime seed & instigated a chat with Dalai.

The next day, on the Sunday, he was much better though still a little quiet. He was eating by himself but not as much as usual, so I offered food as well. I took the time that day to rearrange Dalai’s quarantine cage (that had not yet been removed, even though I cannot remember the last time he went in there) into a recovery cage for Phineas after his surgery. I padded the bottom, put rope perches in & also put in his favourite ttmss swing.

The day of his surgery (6th September) came quickly. That morning, Phineas was in good spirits. He had been preening my finger, regurgitating & more importantly, fitted in a jiggy-jiggy. As the time approached, I managed to lock Bezukhov & Dalai in the Villa & Phineas in the manor, where I could catch him to put him in the travel cage. You can see from the (last) video I took of him in the travel cage (below) that he was lively & alert.

At the vet hospital, we were seen by a nurse who explained what would happen. I signed the papers authorising the surgery. Phinny was stressed by the journey & was panting. I attached his water bottle that had Guardian Angel in it (a tonic). We said our good byes. I cried leaving him. There is always a risk with surgery but this seemed the only option.

We returned home to wait. They would ring when he was in recovery. If I had not heard in about 3 hours, I was to ring them.