The shock of a life time.

WHERE IS BOREDOM!? WHERE IS PEACE!? I feel like every week there is a new crisis, happening, or something. This week was the biggest. Tuesday night (about 11) Nigel was playing in his favorite drawer. He had a hard time getting out. When he got on top of his cage I noticed that his bottom was really swollen and he was pushing hard. This freaked me out. I called an emergency vet here in town and asked if they had a avian vet. She said they did and I rushed Nigel there. When I got there they told me they don't treat birds. I told them that I had just called and she said "Oh I thought you said evening vet". I lost it, I was stressed anyway and had hit every red light in town, now she tells me that. Thankfully I was too upset to say what I was thinking which was "if you are a 24 hour emergency vet, why would I ask if you had an evening vet"? They told me about a place in Post Falls which was about 20-30 min. away. I took off. There were many prayers said on that drive. We made it there and they took Nigel back (notice I only said Nigel). Finally the Dr. (who was not an avian vet but at least she was willing to look at him) came out and said that he would need a x-ray and a blood test. After quite a wait she said the x-rays looked good. She found a couple things amiss with his blood work but nothing that screamed to her. She thought that Nigel might have a infection and some diarrhea so she gave us antibiotics with vitamins and something to help his digestive tract. We finally got home at 3 am.

Later that day I called an avian vet and was able to get Nigel in today (Thursday). Over the day+ in between he was not getting any better, actually it looked about the same if not a tad bit worse. I got off work early today and we went to the vet. The ride there was pretty unadventurous. I noticed at one point Nigel moved from the side of his travel hut to the center but did not think a lot about it. While at the vet's office waiting for our turn to go back I noticed that one of Nigel's toes was up at a weird angle. I reached in and felt something under the towel that I had in the bottom of it. I knew I had not put toys in there and could not figure out what it could be. I lifted up the edge of the towel and found an egg! I was in shock and said "Wow, this is new". The front desk lady looked at me and I picked up the egg and showed it to her. I then looked at Nigel and said "no wonder you felt bad, welcome to the worst club on Earth". The rest of the vet visit went very smoothly now that the problem has been identified he did a few checks on her and that was about it. He did say that Nigel was a little on the skinny side. He....she eats like a horse I don't know how she metabolizes it so fast (wish I did though). Thankfully that huge stress is over. Thanks to Jerry starting about 2 years ago I know what to watch for now and what will happen. Hopefully now it will be the first good nights sleep in 2 nights.....for both of us. They are not fertile so there will be no babies.

And as for her name.....I am leaving it as Nigel. I mentioned to one of the vet tech's that I did not know how to make Nigel into a female name. She said you don't, she answers to Nigel, and she does not know it is a male name. I agree. I will probably call her Nigie more often now. I have called her that for a while but it does sound a bit more feminine.