Editor’s note: Serafina passed away on May 20th just as her surgery was finishing. This is a sad but beautiful story that I feel deserves to be shared. 

Guest post by Nicole Smith, excerpted from Serafina’s Surgery GoFundMe

My name is Nicole. I am urgently fundraising on behalf of Palomacy for surgical tumor removal for Serafina, a lovely female pigeon who is currently in my care. Serafina normally lives in a large volunteer-run foster aviary, but came into my care when I noticed her looking uncomfortable and having trouble breathing during my volunteer shift. I brought her to Medical Center for Birds the next day, where we discovered an ovarian tumor on ultrasound. Draining fluid from around the tumor gave her instant relief, but the fluid quickly returned and started to mildly affect her breathing within about a week. We drained the fluid off again, and she is still benefiting from this, but we don’t want to wait for the fluid to reaccumulate before we take action. Our options to significantly improve her comfort non-surgically are limited, so, after much discussion, we have opted to give her the best chance that we can by attempting surgical removal of the tumor. The ultrasound can’t rule out the possibility that the cancer has spread or that the tumor is in a tricky location, but, depending on what we find during surgery, we think we may have a shot at excising the entire tumor, which could make a complete cure a possibility. Her surgery is scheduled for Monday, so please send best wishes and, if you can, please help us fund her care.

We can ask for current totals for her care on Monday and/or Tuesday to post here. For now, I am setting the goal at what I expect will be an appropriate number assuming the surgery is a success. If there is an excess of donations, the money will go far to help Palomacy rescue and care for other pigeons in need, but I will try to update the goal as appropriate.

Serafina is a particularly sweet and gentle hen, who gets along with all of her flockmates and loves the sun. During her first vet visit, she charmed both me and the doctor by preening us, especially after we drained the fluid. Her husbird, Norm, has been with her the whole time. His worried look was part of what tipped me off that Serafina needed urgent help when I saw her looking uncomfortable during my volunteer shift. The changes in his demeanor have helped me gauge Serafina’s comfort. The two of them are now in a private suite inside my outdoor aviary where they can get some pre-op sun therapy and constant access to a bath bowl.

In the fundraiser photo, Serafina is the smaller bird standing on the left, looking toward the camera. She has some small black spots. Her husbird, Norm, is on the right side of the photo (by Serafina’s left side).

Thank you for any and all help through donations or through sharing her fundraiser.

Serafina should currently be in surgery with the two doctors who have been treating her. She was scheduled for noon. I was told that, if all goes well, I should get a call around 3pm. If something were to go wrong, I would hear earlier. Since I have not received a call yet (it’s about 2:30pm our time), I am cautiously optimistic that surgery is going/has gone well. Thanks to all who have contributed thus far. I got the summary of charges for her care before the surgery and am attaching a photo of that with personal information blacked out. I will try to get an updated summary tomorrow that includes all of her surgery charges and then I will adjust the fundraiser goal accordingly.

Norm has been acting really different since we dropped Serafina off. Although we brought him with us, we ultimately decided to bring him home with us rather than leave him at the hospital. Serafina should not be there long, and, based on our familiarity with the couple, we thought that Norm might be really stressed by seeing but not being able to be near Serafina while she wakes up from anesthesia; I’m not sure if this was the right call now that I see how he looks at home. When we got home, I put him in a little bed next to me and he never moved from it. When I eventually moved him to the “bird room” (which is the indoor room where the two of them stayed until we moved them outside over the weekend), he moved to their old favorite spot to snuggle together and hasn’t moved from there since. I am really looking forward to bringing Serafina home to him, if the stars are all lined up in our favor. Huge thanks to the doctors and to everyone who has donated for giving us a shot at saving Norm’s best friend.

I’ll update you as soon as I hear from the doctors.

Nicole

I just got home from the vet clinic and I have bad news. While the doctors were closing the incision, Serafina’s heart stopped. Multiple attempts to revive her restarted her heart temporarily, but she ultimately died despite their best efforts. I got the call not long after my last post.

My partner and I left immediately with Norman and brought him back to the clinic to see her body so that he could understand that she had died. He was aloof at first (I think he understood and just wasn’t ready to approach), but eventually went near her. After about an hour, he found a spot up above her body where he sat and just watched. We took off her band, which is in my pocket now, and after an additional half an hour, packed Norm up and went home.

The vets had successfully extracted the entire ovarian tumor during the surgery. The procedure likely would have cured her. I am really disappointed that we didn’t get to bring her home, and my heart is hurting for Norm. That said, I trust both of those doctors so much, and I know that that surgery and those two doctors were her best shot at happy, pain-free years with Norman. I’m glad that we, as a community (Palomacy and everyone who donated or shared her fundraiser) gave her that best of all possible chances.

The tumor was in proximity to her aorta, so I can’t imagine how difficult the surgery must have been. One of the preforming vets explained that there were three or four smaller vessels around the tumor that made excising it difficult, which made the surgery last longer than intended. Serafina did have some bleeding, which was responded to appropriately, and her blood pressure and all the monitors were steady throughout the procedure. I know they must have also been crushed to have gotten so close to completely curing our sweet Serafina only to lose her at the very end. I haven’t spoken to the vets any further yet (I have been focused on Norm), but if I get any more information about the procedure in the coming days I will share it.

I will be updating the summary of charges within the next couple of days.

Best to you all. I’m so sorry that this is not the result that we were all pulling for.

Nicole

Yesterday, I brought Norman back to the foster aviary where he and Serafina lived before I took them in. He immediately reclaimed his and Serafina’s old box (which was covered while they were with me to prevent anyone else from moving into it). He had been withdrawn and inactive in my aviary, so I was really happy to see him perk up when he returned to his home. During my volunteer shift cleaning the aviary, he was vocal and active. He did some nice dancing for his flock mates. It was nice to see some of the spunk that he had before Serafina died returning in such a big way. I loved watching him dance for Serafina while they were with me; seeing him dance again was bittersweet.

I have, as promised, although a little later than intended, an updated invoice for Serafina. The chance at life for Serafina was invaluable. Thank you to everyone who helped us give her that.

Best,

Nicole

Serafina & Norman at their aviary nestbox

RIP Serafina

You can donate towards Serafina’s GoFundMe here.