Stupid Aspergillus

Last month, when we had the painting done downstairs, the painter said there was some mold behind the wallpaper in Kiwi's Room, formerly know as the dining room.

Crap.

Birds in general, and African Greys in particular, are really sensitive to mold. Aspergillosis, an infection caused by the aspergillus fungus, can be fatal.

Kiwi is no no way symptomatic, but two weeks ago, when she was at the vet for her annual exam, I mentioned the mold in that room. It was dead mold, and she had only been living in that area for a few months, but I was paranoid. The vet checked her out and she looks great. He checked her white blood count, which was perfectly normal. But because she is a Grey, we ran the labs.

$200 labs that has to ben sent off to the University of Miami. BTW.

It came back positive.

The bad news is this is scary stuff with long term treatment. And Kiwi is decidedly displeased with taking medicine. The good news is that we seem to be pretty far ahead of the game in diagnosis. My lame Internet research suggests that often, the reason aspergillosis kills the birds is that the symptoms come so late. In fact, now that I am thinking about it, I don't remember if Dr. Sakas said she actually has aspergillosis, or just that the aspergillus spores were present in her system.

Whatever. It is war on the fungus now. I happen to be allergic to aspergillus, so we are having an inspector come out to the house so that we can obliterate it.

In the meantime, Kiwi is going to have to learn to take her meds.