#phichit the burbler

Phichit is healthy fat bean again!

(An update: the hole that was once a tumor has closed as much as it will, he’s gained 11 grams and then stabilized in 5 ½ weeks’ time, he’s singing and sitting on one foot with proper tail angle again…his balance is still off and he panics and seems in pain if we try to clean off the last dried blood on his eye but overall, look at that difference!)

The Mysterious Case of Phichit’s Eye

Hello, everyone! Nico and Phichit’s human here, to share a story about lack of posts, sick beans, and freaking weird-ass medical mysteries! (Spoilers: there’s a happy ending!)

So, you may have noticed that our anxious bean has a growth beneath his eye:

He had it when we adopted him at 2-3 years old (they don’t band birds in Japan so we aren’t exactly sure), and they said he was born with it. The vets said it was probably just a fatty tumor, definitely benign as otherwise he would have died a while ago, and so we just let it be.

About a year ago, it started growing, like really fast. Because it was right under his eye (the skin around the growth is part of his eyelid), surgery would be too dangerous unless he was already on death’s door, and he seemed fine otherwise, so the vet advised us to just leave it. Then a couple of months ago, the skin started breaking and bleeding really easily, and this weird growing scab appeared on the front of the growth: the vet told us the tumor had broken through the skin and was now growing outward, and each time the skin broke, more was exposed. Still, nothing to be done except give him pain meds and try to minimize falls and bleeding. Even Nico was starting to ignore him, like he was already a goner.

One week ago, Phichit fell out of the cage while we were getting ready for our wedding,and all around where the tumor had broken the skin, it started bleeding really seriously. Like, welling up so fast we couldn’t put any coagulant powder on at first, so much that he would shake his head and blood would splatter everywhere. We were worried we would have to cancel to take him to the vet but a lot of blood and panicking later, we got it to stop bleeding. We ended up deciding that the best thing to do was let him rest and if he passed while we were getting married, at least he wasn’t in pain anymore. But, he was still alive that night, and made it through the week, though clearly miserable. The weight of the growth and the way the tumor protruded was pulling his eyelid down so far he couldn’t close his eyes, he wasn’t moving much and only barely eating…we planned to take him in for surgery or euthanasia soon because it was clear his time was limited.

Then this morning, we opened his cage to check on him and…

The tumor FELL OUT.

I kid you not. No blood, except maybe one drop on a single claw, no sound, nothing, just a much-more-energetic bird with a hole in his face and a giant gross scabby thing on the bottom of the cage. It literally fell out of his face.

The vet was totally shocked, said he’d never seen anything like it, but after examining the bird, Phichit has been given a clean bill of health, some antibacterial healing ointment, and orders to make sure nothing gets into the hole while it heals over and to bring him back in next week.

My mother’s theory, which makes a lot of sense, is that when he fell last week, the bleeding was due to the tumor being broken off from the blood vessels, but the tumor also acted as a plug and kept enough pressure on that he didn’t bleed out, but the blood supply to the tumor was cut off still. Then it dried out and he probably scratched at it last night and it just…popped right out.

Our bird accidentally did surgery on himself.

So now yay, hopefully the anxious bean will begin to recover and be happy and healthy again! But wow, what a freak series of coincidences, right? Whew!!!

And now, warning….gross photos of the tumor and Phichit’s temporary face hole, as proof this weird-ass thing actually happened:

Look at how big that thing was!!! No wonder he’s already so much happier and more active! And he can close his eye again!! Such a relief!!!

Anxious bean got sick, is sleeping puff bean now