We came home from the avian vet's office tonight with good news and bad news. The most important thing is we came home with Bungee.

Based on the fecal analysis, the doctor thinks Bungee has some sort of infection of the kidneys. They are inflamed and pressing on a nerve. This is causing numbness and explains why she won't put any weight on the leg. Notice in the photo how she's leaning and putting all her weight on her left foot. This is a marked improvement from earlier today when she just held her right foot completely in the air. Bungee is now on two different medicines - something to help clean acids out her kidneys and antibiotics for the infection. As for what happens next, the doctor gave us three possible scenarios:

1. Best case. This is just a random infection that will clear up with the antibiotics. Once the infection is gone, the inflammation and pressure on the nerve will go away and Bungee will be perfectly fine. Life expectancy: several more years

2. Not so good case. It is a secondary infection caused by a kidney tumor. She sees kidney tumors in parakeets more than any other kind of bird. Hopefully, curing the infection will still cure the leg problem, but it will only be temporary. The tumor will continue to grow and will eventually cause the same (and more) problem(s) with no hope of recovery next time. The doctor said Bungee will be able to manage for a while with just one leg when it happens again, but the tumor will eventually get too large and cause digestive problems, mobility and perching problems, and organ failure. Life expectancy: 9-12 more months

3. Worst case. Again, it is a secondary infection caused by a kidney tumor, but the tumor is already too large and the antibiotics won't help at all. If that is the case, there is nothing we can do except keep her comfortable until it's time to have her put down. Life expectancy: few weeks to a few months

Based on how fast this whole thing has come on, the doctor is really hopeful that it's case #1, but we do need to prepare for the others. That's a lot easier said than done for me. I don't know how much more pet death I can handle right now. It's not been a good year for us in that respect. All I can do is hope and pray that we'll get to have Bungee with us for a long while still. If the antibiotics are going to help, we should see improvement in 2-5 days. So, for now, we wait.