The Healing Power of Animals: Meet Jeff and Freedom

This morning I received an email from my dear friend, Sheila. I never know what I am going to blog about each day, but I always seem to receive something that strikes my eye and touches my heart. This story is really powerful. Not only does it demonstrate the will to live and thrive in wildlife, but how these miracles can touch the humans who are involved in their rescue.

I hope it moves you the way it did me.

Freedom and Jeff

"Freedom and I have been together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 1998 with two broken wings. Her left wing doesn't open all the way even after surgery, it was broken in 4 places. She's my baby.

"When Freedom came in she could not stand. Both wings were broken, her left wing in 4 places. She was emaciated and covered in lice. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vets office.  From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight; and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks.

"This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point where the decision was made to euthanize her if she couldn't stand in a week. You know you don't want to cross that line between torture and rehab, and it looked like death was winning. She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday, because I couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized; but I went anyway, and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her owl cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day.

"We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her. I got her used to the glove,and then to jesses, and we started doing education programs for schools in western Washington. We wound up in the newspapers, radio (believe it or not) and some TV. Miracle Pets even did a show about us.

"In the spring of 2000, I was diagnosed with non-hodgkins lymphoma. I had stage 3, which is not good (one major organ plus everywhere), so I wound up doing 8 months of chemo. Lost the hair -the whole bit. I missed a lot of work. When I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey Wildlife and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.

"Fast forward to November 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after 8 rounds of chemo, then my last option was a stem cell transplant. Anyway, they did the tests; and I had to come back Monday for the results. I went in Monday, and I was told that all the cancer was gone. Yahoo!

"So the first thing I did was get up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight and jessed her up, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn't said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them pressing in on my back (I was engulfed in eagle wings), and she touched my nose with her beak and stared into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I don't know how long. That was a magic moment. We have been soul mates ever since she came in. This is a very special bird.

"On a side note: I have had people who were sick come up to us when we are out, and Freedom has some kind of hold on them. I once had a guy who was terminal come up to us and I let him hold her. His knees just about buckled and he swore he could feel her power coarse through his body. I have so many stories like that.

"I never forget the honor I have of being so close to such a magnificent spirit as Freedom's.

Hope you enjoy this.
Jeff"

There is such a strong connection between animals and humans, as we can clearly see from this story. The healing power of love can't be denied.

Do you have any stories about how animals have inspired you or have touched you deeply in your own personal healing? Please leave a comment and let us know.

 

Fancy Fliers: Meet Linda's Birds

Linda and Sam: Male Eclectus

I met Linda Hemby, the Human Resource Director at Florida Wild Veterinary Hospital, many years ago. Over the years we have developed a friendship and often talk about our love for animals.

One of Linda's greatest passions is birds. She has an amazing ability to communicate with them, and they seem to adore her

Since Linda loves to share about her birds, I invited her to contribute a series of articles as a guest writer to talk about her birds and how she became involved with them. Bird lovers who visit this blog will be delighted to read about  her relationship with them. Here is the first of several installments to follow:

Part One:

"I’ve decided that I will never buy another bird because they will now always be a rescue.  I’ve become so passionate about them that I’ve begun to think breeding is wrong.  We’ve taken these beautiful creatures that were meant to be wild and flying free and conformed them to our world and to our rules. 

My husband and I will soon be building a house on 5 acres in Umatilla,Fl., and not only will I have a bird room with walls painted (by me) with tropical motif, but will have an attached aviary that any caged bird would be envious of. 

I’m learning more about foraging, which is what birds were meant to do in the wild.  I plan to have foraging trees in the aviary with as many safe tropical plants as I can, with foraging stations, natural limbs and branches for perching and napping, and hopefully some type of sprinkler system in there for “rain forest” bathing.  Because it’s an aviary there will be fresh air, sunshine and cool breezes for them to enjoy.

Two of the rescues will never be able to fly (due to bad feather condition) but the rest will become fully flighted, so as to be able to enjoy their lives as closely to that of their cousins in South America.

I currently have 6 birds.  My sweet little cockatiel had to be euthanized last week due to cancer.  Their stories will come in installments.

First is Sam.  He is a male Eclectus that is a severe feather plucker.  I’ve had him only a few short months but he has fallen in love with me and sees me as his mate.  I have to be very careful when he’s hormonal because he displays all the mating behaviors when I pick him up.  Those times it is only to give a quick hug and kiss and very quickly transfer him to a play stand with treats.  Otherwise, he tends to get sexually excited. 

I know very little about Sam other than his owners left him at the Daytona Flea Mall with a gentleman that tries to rehome orphaned birds.  Someone Judy (Florida Wild Veterinary Hospital Administrator) knows saw Sam and convinced the man to bring Sam to our office to try and place in a loving home.  Sam is such a sweet, affectionate bird and I was struck by how friendly he was to all the staff, never biting, and always holding on with a death grip when picked up.  He truly wanted to be loved.  (This was during one of his NON- hormonal periods.) 

I have no idea how old Sam is or how to contact the previous owners to get any information on him.  He had a leg band (which Dr. Holder.DVM, removed) and although I couldn’t read all the writing, it appeared to be an old one.

Dr. Holder did blood work on Sam to assure that he was disease free, which is very important to anyone that is bringing a bird into an environment with other birds.  I felt so sorry for him sitting in that cage day after day waiting for someone to look his way even for a brief moment.  He would sit patiently, eagerly accepting any brief encounter with a human.  Being a busy veterinarian’s office, our quality time with in house animals is limited.

It’s easy for me to gravitate to the birds when we get them.  I tried to make time for him every day that I worked.  Finally, on deciding he was probably unadoptable because of his very poor feather condition, I took him home to join my flock.

Sam is jealous of my other birds but I try to give each of them equal, out of cage, one on one time.  Their current bird room has heat and air, T. V. and radio, and huge windows to look out of.  It faces the water so they get plenty of things to gaze at. 

I’m currently involved in planning where they will go if anything happens to me because many of them will out live me.  It’s important that I find them wonderful loving homes while I’m still alive, rather than leaving my family to make that decision after I’m gone."

We will be bringing further stories about Linda's birds in the future. We do hope that you found this article interesting and informative. Thanks, Linda.

For the bird lovers reading this, what is your favorite thing about them and what drew you to them as companions? Leave a comment and share about your passion.