We were traveling the old hwy 99e because last week our 3 hour trip took 12 hours on the I-5! So I went the old highway when I took Mike to wound care. On the way home, the truck in front of us hit a red-tailed hawk! The truck didn’t stop, but I sure did. Mike was yelling at me but I did an illegal U-turn and whipped around and parked near the field the hawk had stumbled into. I grabbed my heavy coat. I was not going to let that majestic bird die in the middle of a field.
It took several tries to make it up the slippery hill, but finally I saw the hawk and it saw me and tried to fly away. I could see the wing was broken and there was a hole in it’s head. 🙁 It kept trying to get away until finally, I just used my feral cat skills. I sat down on the wet ground and started talking to it. I could see its beady eyes staring me down, so I closed mine (just like I do with the ferals) I carefully stood up, took a deep breath and with my eyes still closed, tossed my carhardt jacket over the bird.
Ok, now I am thinking- Great Mary Anne now you have an injured raptor underneath your coat. What are you going to do next? So I said a prayer and knelt down, gathered the coat around the bird and carried it back to the truck. Mike held it the rest of the trip and instead of going straight home, we went to Corvallis to Chintimeree Wildlife Refuge where I dropped off this beautiful bird and I can call in the morning after 8:00 to find out if it survived. They said when they took it out of my coat that it was in shock, but it was alive. It’s tongue was glued to its beak from the shock and dehydration. I just pray it lived. I saw it fly across the road with a fish in its talons and then the truck sped up- I didn’t see the hawk for several minutes, there was another car behind the truck that hit it- then I saw it appear on the road and it was rolling- so it either got stuck under the truck or it held on to something when it hit? Hard to tell. But in 30 degree weather, I was not about to let it die in a field. If it does die, it will at least be warm and comforted and fed.
Mike is going to gone for a month soon. He is being enrolled in the hyperbaric program at OHSU. It is an outpatient program and as we don’t have friends in the area that he could stay with, we are going to have find appropriate lodging nearby for 30 days where they can shuttle him to the hospital for his 4 hour treatment daily. I can’t go with him, I can’t leave the cats (and honestly kids I need a break from taking care of him). So we will figure all this out when the time comes- he still has two more treatments at the clinic before he “qualifies” There is no way I can drive him up and back every day for a month- so like I said, we will figure it out soon. He has gone from 5 ulcers on his leg to 10- dangit all but we are trying so very hard to save his leg. If it weren’t for the veinous statis he might have a fighting chance but now every time his leg swells, whatever is covering his leg cuts into it- much like an embedded collar would a dog. His leg for lack of a better word is gushy and pretty nasty. I am to change his dressings now three times a week as they are using a special netting to stop the bacteria from spreading. Like I said, I really need a break from all of this-
Good for you. That hawk would have died a slow, frightened death. As you write, if it dies, it’s passing will be quite different.
Geez, Mike – and you – can’t get a break. Does he have to wear anything on that leg (for when it swells) and does it swell that fast? What is causing the ulcers. He must be very frustrated at this, and I can understand that you are very weary.
John, they explained it to me this way. Our veins to our legs push blood up to our heart. Each vein has a valve on it to help push the blood to the organs needing it. In Mike’s case, these valves are malfunctioning causing the blood and fluid to pool around his feet and leg. It is not something they can cure. They already tried that- with surgery. But in his case, in not following the doctor’s orders to elevate his remaining leg above his heart at least 12 hours a day- the fluid has no recourse but to continue to collect under his skin and cause ruptures. he says he can’t elevate his leg that high because it hurts his back….sigh…So they tell me that all this weeping and smell I am encountering daily is a buildup of all the bacteria and fluid in the leg. Hopefully this new bacterial catching netting will help out a bit. But who knows.
Does it help for Mike to lie down while his legs are elevated, or otherwise keep his legs and his torso at a ninety degree angle to each other? I know twelve hours is a long time to stay like that.
Probably TMI but here it goes., He can’t lay flat or he risks choking to death because it causes his heart condition to flare up and he starts to cough without stopping. We have tried everything we can think of to get his good leg over his heart- but it always leaves him in such distress. It isn’t 12 hours straight- it is just supposed to be 12 hours in a day/night that he elevates. But so far, all he does is sit in his lift chair which doesn’t lift his leg near high enough to do any good.