I really should have known better. I’ve lived with Murphy for almost 30 years, having bought her for $800 at a bird mart when she was a chick just four months old. You’d think by now I’d know her personality and habits as well as I know my own. But as Murphy would be the first to tell me, I’m only human and inferior at that. I let other things distract me from the star of the show…who is always Murphy. Murphy does her best to demonstrate time and time again that, as an Umbrella cockatoo, she knows she is superior. She tries to teach me and remind me of that truth, even though I’m an RN with a bachelor's degree in Public Health/Home Care.
So I really should have known better the other day when Murphy bit me and proceeded to jump up and down with glee at her so very clever communication technique. I didn't need her body language translated into English. I knew precisely that she had always wanted to nail my friend Beth, and it would be oh so much fun to bite anyone who came too close to be anything but a target..including me. The bite hadn't come out of nowhere. Beth pushed her limits too many times and in Murphy's mind, the correlation was direct and logical. Beth, once again, wasn't paying attention to the details that mattered to Murphy.
Several years prior, Beth came up to Murphy’s cage and put her head down. Murphy was playing on top of her cage. In cockatoo language and my voice, we yelled in unison for different reasons. I meant “No! Stop!” and Murphy meant “Yahoo!” The Umbrella morphed into a leopard and, with the speed of that cat, leaped down to her human prey. Beth was so startled that she stepped back, tripped, and bounced off the floor on her butt, traveling a good 6 inches. Beth and I laughed hysterically while Murphy just stood over Beth’s prone body as if to say, “Well, now what? I want to play chase.”
As it turned out, it really wasn’t Beth she was after this time; it was me whose attention she wanted and chose to enact this version of cockatoo play for my benefit. I was stressed more than usual after the death of my dad, just three weeks earlier. I had invited Beth over to help me set up my bird room that was still crammed with dusty items belonging to my dad and dating back to 1980. Beth has an African grey, but that doesn’t qualify her as an all-round parrot person. If you know parrots and cockatoos, you know that each species and subspecies share some characteristics but are also distinctly different in personality and expression. Beth does not read cockatoo body language. Murphy, not only being a cockatoo but an Umbrella, punctuated by her own idiosyncrasies, took full advantage of Beth's ignorance and my blind grief. She had already communicated her intentions from her cage, chomping wood and showing off how strong her beak was.
Usually when people are at my house, I watch Murphy like a hawk – bird pun intended! I keep one eye and ear on my visitors and the other eye and ear on Murphy. What's she doing? What's her body language telling me? Is her crest up? Has she locked her eyes on a target? Are her wings completely extended? Is she jumping up and down like a maniac for lack of enough attention?
In previous years when my sons were just boys, Murphy used to play with them. Her favorite games were soccer and Monkey in the Middle. The two boys and the 'too played hard and fast – only safe because the three were raised together. Murphy would jump on the ball and tumble over it. The boys would laugh, and Murphy would pretend to be startled and raise her crest, but it was all an act. They loved the game and each other. Murphy's idea of love is to come forward in her cage, poke a foot through, and lay her head against the bars for a kiss.
This time, the purpose of the bite was clearly to bring me to a level of consciousness that was meant to remind me Murphy expected to be front and center. Never mind that Beth was there to help me in my time of need. What I got was a bite severe enough to force me to stop what I was engaged in and re-engage with Murphy and her powerful beak. She bit me so fast I didn’t even see it coming. Blood dripped everywhere while I tried to stay calm. I had to fool Murphy into thinking she had not hit a home run. The wound was on my left middle finger (so appropriate I thought). The bite wrapped around my nail bed, extending through the nail at one edge. It was gaping open, approximately 4 mm… which sounds small until it’s your tattered finger!
I considered bandaging it but realized it was very hard to wrap well; perhaps stitches would be better. Off I scurried to Urgent Care before it closed. When I arrived, I learned no one on staff did stitching; I’d have to go to another Urgent Care in a nearby community. I raced over there with just minutes to spare before it too would close. I announced myself at the reception desk.
“I have a bite, and I think I need stitches.”
“What kind of bite?”
“A bird bite.”
“Well, you have to fill out this rabies form.”
“It’s a parrot bite. Parrots don’t carry rabies.”
“Well, you have to fill it out anyway. What bit you?”
“A cockatoo.”
…Silence…
I got called into an exam room where I waited with a bit of dread, knowing I’d have to repeat my clearly unbelievable story. In the meantime, I heard laughter and joking in the hallway outside the exam room.
“Wait! Is it a cockapoo? A cockatiel? A cockatoo?”
I knew I’d have to educate the medical staff that parrots and rabies were incompatible.
Sure enough, the doctor took one look at the bite, looked at me, and asked, “What bit you?”
I don’t think he had any idea what a cockatoo was. By now my finger had swelled, was still bleeding, and looked like I had taken a sharp metal ring and jammed it on my finger cutting it all around.
After examining at my finger for probably five minutes and taking four pictures with his phone, he departed, adding, “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet.” Oh joy, I thought.
He returned a few minutes later to inform me, “Parrot bites can transmit psittacosis pasteurella, salmonella, and other nasty bugs.” I had a feeling he had consulted Google….
“I’m going to wrap it with gauze for now, and you have to call a hand surgeon at 8 AM sharp tomorrow morning. I’m sending an urgent referral. You also need to go to Walgreen’s around the corner as soon as you leave here and immediately start taking Doxycycline and Augmentin for a full seven days.”
Dutifully, I saw a hand surgeon, who instructed me to wrap the wound with a gauze square slightly damp with some normal saline, then cover with dry gauze, and then cover with tape...and finally to change the dressing twice a day. (The gauze was to be wrung out like a sponge, just damp.)
I appreciated the medical advice, but I also knew enough from my veterinarian that my wound would heal well. I appreciated the fact that the Urgent Care doctor and the surgeon were concerned about infection, although not from the diseases they thought. In fact, the bite is healing. It is still tender, probably because a nerve was irritated, but the nail is growing back.
Murphy is well aware she bit me. Every chance she gets, she wants to look at it, as if inspecting the success of her damage, based on the pounds of beak pressure per square inch a cockatoo is capable of. I can tell she continues to congratulate herself on a job well done! She’s pleased with herself and pleased with me. I can go so far as to state the bite might have been meant to show me she still loves me despite my grief. I’m sure that’s it, because when she’s in her cage, she always comes forward to poke a foot through and lay her head against the bars for a kiss.
In hindsight, even as wrecked as I was, contending with fresh feelings of my dad’s death AND a fresh wound bleeding all over me and my car, I probably should have taken an extra minute to print out an accurate list of diseases that might result from a parrot’s beak bite and hand it to the doctor; by the way, the diseases are usually respiratory in nature…. Now I have that list at hand (again a pun), should Murphy take another chunk out of me.
I am grateful to Urgent Care and the specialist for the wound/dressing care. I would suggest, based on my experiences and as a nurse, to keep some normal saline, available at a pharmacy, on hand to flush a wound immediately after a beak bite or talon scratches. I had taken the step of pouring hydrogen peroxide on my wound immediately after rinsing it with plain water. The next step would be to pat the area dry and apply antibiotic ointment and a bandage. However, don’t hesitate to go to an ER or Urgent Care if a wound won’t stop bleeding, is gaping open, is extremely painful, or you develop a fever. And bring your printouts with you!
As a parrot person reminder, despite how well you know your bird or how long you’ve had your bird, it’s really not safe to allow your parrot on your shoulder because it may, can, and will bite an ear, eye, cheek, lip, potentially requiring multiple surgeries and even leaving your face permanently disfigured. We love our parrots, and we have to keep in mind that they are not domesticated or human children (who may also be prone to biting!). Your parrot may well love you, but bird love isn’t just about cuddling.
Kommentare