Results - inconclusive

[asterroc]

Well, they didn't ever call, but they mailed me the results. In short: inconclusive. I wish I knew more, but I'm okay with it so far, I wasn't expecting anything else.

In long: [my comments in footnotes; any typos are mine; underlined items I'd like more info on if anyone knows]

Species: Avian
Breed: Cockat
Patient: Gabriel
Age: 7 yrs / 5 mos ¹

Gross findings:
A 7 year old, 71 g,² female cockatiel is examined on January 3, 2008 at 1:00pm. The animal was found dead on December 30, 2007. The post mortem interval is 4 days. No external lesions are apparent. Pre-autopsy radiographs reveals no indication of skeletal trauma.³ There is a 4.0 mm x 3.0 mm black, proliferative skin lesion located on the left medial carpus. There are two 4.0 mm x 1.0 mm, firm white fusiform structures adherent to the fascia just dorsal to the trachea and esophagus at the middle cervical area.

The heart weighs 1.0 g. The abdomen and thorax are grossly normal.

The brain is grossly normal.⁴

Gross Diagnosis
Cervical Fascia: two 0.4 x 0.1 cm white adherent masses

Microscopic Findings:
Heart, slide 1, 5 sections: Walls of multiple coronary arteries are mildly thickened⁵

Lung, slide 2, 2 sections: The lungs are mildly congested.⁵

Kidney, slide 4, 2 sections: Tubular epithelial cells are diffusely swollen and contain eosinophilic granular cytoplasm (hyaline droplet degeneration). Multiple medullary tubules contain protein casts.

Cervical mass, slide 7: The mass seen grossly is a 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.2 cm cyst containing aggregation of myxoid to fibrous acellular material surrounded by a thin layer of connective tissue. Normal thymic tissue is present outside the fibrous capsule of the cyst.

The following tissues were examined and found to be within normal histologic limits:
[list omitted due to laziness]

Diagnosis:
Open

Comment:
No significant gross or microscopic lesions are found to explain the sudden death in this case. There is no evidence of contagious or infectious disease or trauma. The hyaline protein droplets observed in multiple renal tubules are likely to be an artifact of several days' postmortem refrigeration.

My notes:
1: must've made up the months
2: Her remains must have dehydrated to weigh that little. She was 94g in life.
3: I.e., no signs of a broken neck - from what the first vet told me, it appears the x-ray was done specifically b/c of my guessing that as a cause.
4: This appears to have been done b/c of my concern for a possible seizure.
5: It looks like there were a few minor problems, but according to their final conclusion none would be likely to cause death.

I'm handling it fine so far. It's frustrating to not have a final answer. It's a relief to not have anything that points a big finger saying "you're a bad bird mom!" It's a bit selfish maybe to want to ease my guilt. Makes me feel free to get another bird - if I knew I'd done wrong I'd probably be crying my heart out right now convinced I should never get another pet b/c I'd just kill it, so it's a relief that I get to have another pet. Ask me again in a day or two how I am.

Anyone understand those underlined portions in the report? It's the sort of thing where I know I can look up every last word if I need to, but it'd be a pain to piece it together.

Comments

[ayashi.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that you didn't get more of a conclusive report, but I'm glad you finally got it. *hug*

histology

[poludamas.livejournal.com]

Without being a real histologist, the only thing that concerns me is the proliferative lesion--sounds like a possible melanoma type thing. However, other circumstances such as the lack of any wasting or chronic symptoms argue against cancer as a COD. Nothing else sounds like a major issue--they write off the kidney issues as artifacts, although protein casts can be signs of kidney infection (when detected in human urine samples) but if there had been an infection there would have been inflammation and other evidence of the bacteria.

So it seems like heart attack, stroke, trauma, and bacterial infection are all ruled out. I'm sorry that it remains a mystery, but I don't think you should be worried about your abilities as a bird mom--in fact, that you went through all this shows how much you care. Good luck with the new one!

Re: histology

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the input. Yesterday I asked one of my colleagues at work to help me interpret the results, and she mentioned that a seizure (abnormal brain electrical activity) probably would not show in a necropsy, so that remains as a possible cause of death, and appears consistent with what I found. It's neither ruled out nor confirmed. *shrug* I've been moving on. I'm excited about my new bird, can't wait to bring her home!