05/28/2026
No prosthetic....
They CAN do a surgery BUT Tony has SO many other things going on with him health wise that it's simply not a good idea.
CT revealed bullae, or air pockets in his lungs, further increasing his risks under anesthesia on top of his pulmonary fibrosis, or lung scarring. There is no cure, only management.
He also has atherosclerosis which typically is not visible on CT but since it was we know it's fairly far along. This increases his risk of heart disease and if we did the surgery, heart failure. There is no cure, only management.
He potentially has proventricular dilation where his digestive system has neurologic issues causing a number of GI issues and can eventually lead to death. We are having him tested for Borna Virus which can cause this but the test could come back positive and he not have it. He's currently not showing any of the symptoms of it, but some birds are carriers without symptoms. It's possible though that the dilation they saw was just a temporary thing the result of swallowing air or other one time things. We're investigating this more.
We are having blood work repeated to see if his white blood cell count is still obscenely high and if his uric acid is still high. The elevated white cells could indicate chlamydomonas (respiratory in birds and not related to the human version). We have a blood test out for that as well but also causes respiratory issues. He does not currently have any signs of that but we're trying to rule it out. Same with the uric acid elevation. Retesting to rule out kidney issues.
So after all that, if we WERE to do the prosthetic surgery, rather than the plate we planned on originally, the surgeon thought a series of bone anchors would be better. They would install the anchors in his 1mm thick skull attempting not to go through it. Then we would wait probably months for the bone to grow around them a little to stabilize it. Then he could get the prosthetic installed. Depending on the material and his use of it though it could need to be replaced as soon as 6 months. Every single one of those procedures involves anesthesia which puts him at risk of death due to all the other conditions he has.
All that to say NO, we are not at this time going forward with the prosthetic because his life is worth more and he's learning how to work within the confines of his abilities.
