It's Time

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...to tell those, who didn't quite understand the story behind the last upload, what this was all about.

First of all I want to thank everyone who commented and favourited my last drawing; I was pretty surprised how much attention it had gotten, despite not really being a drawing that I had spend much time on regarding the actual drawing time. It must be because of the stylized clouds I guess, hm.

On 6th of January in the night to Saturday my cockatiel Yui had died of exhaustion, after slowly getting thinner and thinner with every visit that I made to the vet. Whenever someone tried to trim her beak once more, she hyperventilated to no end and eventually became too weak to eat, even though the last visits actually promised a positive outcome for all this. At the end there was just no fat left on her to keep her alive and to let her wounds heal.
I finally came to terms with my own self and accepted that it was just too much for her little body to bear. Though, despite having so many illnesses that she suffered from, she managed to fight against all of them until the very end.

Finally, after almost 3 weeks I feel like I can slowly close this chapter of my life, in which I was grateful to have had a bird like her in my home. No matter how hard you try; at the end of a lost battle you still develop that numb feeling of raw guilt towards every little decision that you had made or not made regarding her illness.

For those, who are interested:
After her hospitalization in Leipzig, Yuis health became slightly better, but the noises she made during each breath didn't vanish. I got told by the vet to wait and call back when it became worse, because there was nothing they could do at the moment, after V-Fend (probably the best fungal medication you can currently find) had proven to show no effect on her at all.
I did as I was told, until one day her health suddenly decreased rapidly. Yui started to show strange plucking behaviour regarding her left leg, as if it itched her, but that day she didn't use it at all anymore. When I placed her onto my open palm, she kept it like a fist and didn't stand on it anymore and she was also very apathic. When trying to fly she could not get up and instead just sunk to the floor and stayed there. The eye infection that she had ever since I had visited the general vet clinic in Gera, became worse as well.

I decided to follow a hint of my roommate to visit a vet next town, who regularly treated quite a few clients with birdpatients and because I did not want to transport her for another 3 hours all the way to Leipzig again, I gave in.
The vet was overall very competent; she knew directly how to feed Yui properly with her vulnerable beak and immediately started the treatment for the eye infection. She also asked me to keep her at the office and I approved. The first day it seemed like it was all getting better. She called me, stating that the eye looked a lot better already and that she was not as apathic anymore as she was the other day. Though, on the following day the vet asked me to keep her over the weekend, as she had noticed how Yui didn't eat anything anymore even though her beak was trimmed bloodless.
I kind of started to feel really strange and also performed rather badly at work on that day. That was probably the reason why I myself got the bloody Noro virus from one of the many patients, because I was just not careful enough.

So, as if my weekend wasn't shitty enough with me, puking all over my room at 2 o clock in the morning and having a circulatory collapse every 3 meters while trying to get to the bathroom, I also received a call from my vet on Saturday morning, who told me that Yui had fallen asleep during the night.
2017 had definitely a terrible start for me so far.

The weather seemed to work against me as well, as the nights were so cold that it was almost impossible to dig a grave anywhere nice, so I had to wait for 5 days until it got at least a little bit warmer. The cousin of Diana allowed me to bury her in his own garden, which was a huge relief for me; I didn't want to hand her over to the animal crematory as I was used to bury all my owned animals myself.

Thanks to him I managed to keep that tradition~


I am not really a person who takes photos that often and if I do, I only use them as a documentation for a certain event. That is the reason why I have very few pictures of Yui when she was still healthy. Whenever I look into photos, I feel like I am intruding a timeline, that has to be left alone for its own sake. I know that the pictures in our heads will eventually grey out and vanish as time passes, but the feeling that we had when our pets touched, played and communicated with us will forever remain in our hearts.
This feeling can't be caught by a photo. It is timeless.

Skin by SimplySilent
© 2017 - 2024 Acayth
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RohvannynShaw's avatar
Oh - one last thing.  Regarding your recent upload, I found it visually striking as it was not the usual aspect ratio, and though it was a simple piece it was effectively done. I can understand wondering why someone that was fairly quick to do got so much attention, though.  I've had the same thing happen to me.