Unlikely Companions

by Laurie Hess

  Maxine was cupping the limp glider in her hands. “Please help him,” she pleaded. “I don’t know what to do. He’s hardly moving.” I gently wrapped Georgie in a soft towel and set him down on the examining table. Before handling pets at the hospital, I wrap them this way. It keeps them from scratching me or wiggling away. Like human babies, most animals like the security and comfort of being swaddled in a towel. I wrapped up Georgie, but I could tell from his spiritless behavior that he wasn’t going anywhere. His big, dark eyes were uncharacteristically droopy for a sugar glider, not at all bright or wide. Usually, the large eyes of a sugar glider, disproportionate to their small bodies, remind me of ET, the extraterrestrial in the Steven Spielberg film.

  I opened Georgie’s mouth. His tongue and gums were dehydrated and dry, and his breathing was labored and shallow, his chest barely moving.

  “I did everything they told me to,” Maxine said and pulled a pamphlet out of her Coach Classic tote. She unfolded “How to Care for a Sugar Glider” on the table in front of me and pointed to the third bullet point: hand feeding. “I even tried feeding him mealworms by hand. Can you imagine me doing that?”

  I gave her a reassuring smile.

  “Still,” she said, “he couldn’t keep any food down without shaking.”

  Maxine was shaking now too.

  “I really didn’t mean for him to get sick.”

  “I’m sure you did everything right,” I said.

  Guilt. I run into this animal every day at the hospital. Nearly every pet owner brings in some amount of it. Georgie had gotten sick, and Maxine was blaming herself. I should have seen the signs. I should have caught it earlier. I shouldn’t have waited. What was I thinking? In all my years of veterinary practice, I have met few pet owners who don’t feel a deep, personal responsibility for their pets’ health and happiness, and when their animals get sick, they blame themselves for somehow failing them. Maxine began to cry.

  “I should have known better,” she said. “Jesus, what do I know about taking care of a sugar glider?” She wiped the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t even know what one was until two weeks ago.” She took a deep breath and regained her composure.

  “I was visiting my sister in Connecticut,” she said. “We were out shopping at the mall, and they were selling them right outside Macy’s, of all places. Out of nowhere, here comes this little animal flying through the air toward me. He landed right on my shoulder. He was the most adorable thing, and I fell in love right away. I would have tucked him into my purse and taken him with me that minute, but the company spokesman asked me to think on it and revisit the mall in two days. If I still wanted Georgie, then I could fill out all the necessary paperwork, complete the adoption process, and take him home. They do this, they say, to discourage impulse buys. Well, after coming up with every possible reason I could think of not to go back to the mall and adopt Georgie, of course I did.”

  From my office, I dialed Maxine’s number. She picked up after the first ring.

  “Good morning, Maxine. It’s Dr. Hess from the Veterinary Center for Birds & Exotics.”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s early. It must be bad news.”

  I hesitated. Delivering news of a death is by far the hardest part of my job, and even though I’ve offered my condolences many more times than I’d like to count, I regret doing it every time. There’s no really easy way to pass on news of a death. I’ve learned that a direct approach is less painful to receive.

  “I’m sorry, Maxine. It’s not good news. We did everything we could, but Georgie was very sick. Despite our best efforts, Georgie has passed away.”

  Maxine was quiet.

  “I’m very sorry,” I said again.

  She choked. “I understand.”

  I knew she must be feeling guilty all over again, so I said, “Please understand that this isn’t your fault. You took great care of Georgie. There’s nothing you did to make Georgie sick.”

  “Then what did?” she asked in a pained whisper.

  If only I knew. I didn’t have an answer for her. Not a complete one anyway.

  “Georgie died of organ failure early this morning, and we’re still trying to determine the cause. As soon as I know more, you’ll be the first person I call.”

  What had made Georgie sick was still a mystery to me—as were the deaths of the three other young gliders that had died before him. I replayed the events of the last ten days in my mind.

  When the first lethargic glider had shown up at the hospital, I wasn’t too concerned. Gliders are naturally energetic and sometimes so high intensity in their activity that they easily exhaust themselves. But extreme weakness is typically the result of quick-onset malnutrition—a condition that exotic animal vets see in sugar gliders all the time. As someone with adult-onset diabetes, I can immediately recognize the signs. A glider is most often suffering from a poor diet if he has the shakes, similar to how I feel when my blood sugar levels swing out of whack. Some pet owners don’t know that, despite what their name suggests, sugar gliders actually need a balanced diet rich in calcium and protein to maintain their bounce-off-the-walls vibrancy. When fed a diet high in fruits and sugary vegetables, they get sick—just as humans do—and end up with deficiencies in calcium, vitamins, and protein, putting them at risk for rickets and bone fractures. Sure, sugar gliders love sugar. They’ll happily eat grapes, berries, and bananas all day long, and in the wild they also use their large incisor teeth to chew on the branches of trees, such as apple and citrus, from which they extract sweet sap. But fruits should really only make up 20 to 25 percent of their total diet. I recommend that at least 50 percent of their diet come from a commercially prepared and balanced pelleted food, which should be supplemented with proteins, such as hard-cooked egg yolks or insects.

  I recalled the reaction of a young girl who’d brought in her sugar glider for a routine checkup when I told her, “Your glider needs a combination of nutrient-rich foods. You can continue to feed your glider some fruit, but,” I said, teasing her, “be sure to sprinkle some bugs on top. Crickets and mealworms are your sugar glider’s favorite. He’ll gobble them right up.”

  “Eeew,” she said with easy disgust. I smiled and assured both her and her mother that pelleted food containing essential protein, nutrients, and vitamins was also available at their local pet store. “You don’t have to collect the bugs yourself.” I held out a starter bag for the girl to take home. She clung to her mother’s side. I bent down and whispered in her ear. “Not to worry. I already checked it. Nothing crawling in this one.”

  When I’d examined the first sick glider ten days ago, I’d thought I was seeing the telltale signs of a poor diet, which is fairly straightforward to treat. I prescribed oral calcium supplementation and a syringe feeding formula to boost vitamin D levels, minerals, and protein. Even when the second sick glider came in a day later with the same symptoms and the third a day after that, I wasn’t overly concerned. I followed with a similar treatment plan and placed each sick glider in an incubator in the ICU to help regulate its body temperature. I was confident they’d all show signs of recovery fairly quickly. I had seen dozens of gliders over the past several years with similar signs, and all of them had recovered with supportive care and proper nutrition.

  But when X-ray and blood test results for these three sick gliders came back from the lab, they showed normal sugar, calcium, and protein levels. At that point I got very concerned. If they’re not malnourished, I wondered, then what is making them sick? Could they have some strange infection? Was something in their environment—their houses or apartments or water or food—affecting them all, even though they lived in different homes?

  Marnie and I administered a series of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medications, and additional nutritional supplements to all three animals, the type of general supportive treatment we usually administer to malnourished gliders. It’s also what we give gliders with illnesses that we can’t immediately identify. But with each passing hou
r, the little animals’ conditions worsened. Each day, they became weaker and weaker. Whenever they attempted to climb, as they usually did, they would strain at the effort, struggling to pull their frail little bodies up the sides of their cages. Eventually they stopped trying. And then, horribly, they became unable to move at all and lay motionless on the bottoms of their cages. They wouldn’t take mealworms or crickets—typically their favorite treats—and no medications or dietary supplements helped them improve. As their condition continued to worsen, they lost the ability even to swallow; the gruel we repeatedly tried to feed them through syringes just dribbled back out of their mouths.

  With Georgie’s death, I’d now lost four gliders. Nothing I’d done for any of these poor animals had worked. After two decades of practice, I wondered, how could I not find the answers? I’d always managed to do so before and to save gliders and other animal patients, especially with the help of all the technological advances, breakthrough studies, and new research that had allowed veterinary medicine to nearly catch up with human medicine. I’d learned how to do it all—operate on a chinchilla, medicate a tree frog, and treat respiratory infections in a parakeet—each time with the clock ticking and the animal’s health hanging in the balance. What was I missing here?

  I logged onto Vets Connect, a national resource site and online chat group for veterinarians far and wide. I’d been checking it for several days now, searching for answers and soliciting help. “If anybody sees similar symptoms,” I’d asked, “please contact me immediately.” So far, I hadn’t received one response or seen a report. Until today. The top posting on the message board read, “Young sugar glider deaths.”

  I exhaled. I wasn’t alone.

  The top post describing a young female glider sounded eerily familiar. “A female sugar glider, Misty, with a 36-hour history of not wanting to eat and extreme lethargy. She is severely dehydrated with her most remarkable sign being throwing her head back and flailing her front legs whenever she is handled.”

  Tremors. Similar to what I’d seen in Georgie.

  “The glider did not eat at all Monday,” the report continued, “and Tues morning was extremely lethargic, just lying in her cage. Unfortunately Misty passed away today.”

  I anxiously scanned through the thread of comments underneath. There’d been two similar sugar glider deaths in Massachusetts. Another in Connecticut. More reports from Michigan. And Tampa. My stomach did a somersault. Adding them up, I got a death count of more than twenty. So the sickness wasn’t isolated to my hospital. It was spreading across the country. In every case, frantic glider owners were showing up with their sick pets at clinics and animal hospitals. Just as I’d seen myself, their animals had suddenly become too ill to move, almost overnight.

  Vets across the country were reporting the same symptoms I’d treated: extreme fatigue and muscle weakness, followed by tremors, seizures, and ultimately organ failure. From what I was reading, they were attempting to treat the gliders as I had—with antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, fluids, and nutritional supplements. But nothing was working. I read a post from Michigan stating that supportive care had been 50 percent successful and noting that the sick gliders improved initially but eventually succumbed. The necropsy report attached to this post read, “Vague changes to the kidney tubules, breakdown of liver tissue, and inflammation of the nerves. No obvious organisms or infectious agents seen.”

  I hadn’t performed a necropsy on any of the four gliders that had died under my care. If Maxine permitted, I’d perform one on little Georgie. Perhaps it would tell me more than the general blood tests had revealed so far. I’d have to send the organ samples to our chief pathologist in California, who was familiar with sugar glider anatomy and illnesses. The results of a pathologist’s report can sometimes take up to a week to get back. I’d just have to wait, fingers crossed, and hope that if another sick glider came through my hospital doors, it would have the strength to hold on.

  My cell phone vibrated with a text from Marnie: “Bob Dixon—waiting room.” That could only mean that another sick glider had arrived. I quickly unwrapped a protein bar and took a bite to keep my own blood sugar stable before heading to the front of the hospital.

  9:02 A.M.

  MARNIE HAD THROWN the oversized burgundy doormat, imprinted with the hospital logo, outside the front door—an indication that the hospital was now open for business. I was amazed to see the waiting room still empty, except for Bob Dixon, who stood up to greet me from the cushioned bench that spanned the front window. I’d recognize him anywhere—lean and tall, dressed in a clean denim work shirt and cowboy boots. He extended a permanently stained hand, the result of years of finishing furniture he built from salvaged redwood, cedar, and white oak.

  “Thanks for seeing me in a pinch, Dr. Hess,” he said.

  “Of course.” I squeezed his hand. “Anything for Lily.”

  Bob’s sugar glider Lily, who was quietly curled up in a corner of a small metal cage, had been a regular patient of mine for nearly five years.

  “Why don’t you bring her back to the examination room, and we’ll take a look.” I motioned toward an open door.

  As soon as the door clicked shut, Bob set down the cage and then untucked his denim button-down, revealing yet another sugar glider nesting in the pocket of his white undershirt. I drew in a surprised breath. That Bob was “wearing” another animal was not unusual; it was standard practice for owners of these small marsupials. In fact, I had many clients with small pets who also preferred to keep them close. Cherie Marino always carried her beloved blue and yellow budgies, Lolly and Molly, in her double-D bra and made a big presentation of rousing the small, chirpy birds from their human nest.

  “Wake up, sleepyheads,” she’d coo into the depths of her warm cleavage. Molly, the more gregarious of the two, whose feathers were a bright yellow, was always the first to peek out. She’d perch between the cups of Cherie’s bra, chirping and observing her surroundings before jumping out. Lolly, the powder blue male bird, was more reserved and often needed coaxing out of his hiding place.

  “Come on, Mister,” Cherie would say. “Time to greet the world.” She’d reach her hand between her breasts and scoop out Lolly, much like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.

  Similarly to Mrs. Marino’s budgerigars, marsupials like Bob Dixon’s glider love the sensation and secure bond created by being physically close to their owners. They have a cozy, nesting nature, and snuggling inside Bob’s warm shirt pocket probably felt a lot like being carried around by Mama in her pouch. In fact, many product designers have catered to these animals’ desire to snuggle up. At the last pet product trade show I attended, among the thousands of booths exhibiting every type of product for every species of animal imaginable, the sugar glider “bonding pouch” worn around the neck like a little hammock or a baby sling was the clear winner—it had become more popular than the potbellied pig Björn and the ferret Pop-N-Play.

  Despite these many options for pouches, however, Bob chose the simplicity of his shirt pocket.

  “This is unexpected,” I said. “When did Lily get . . . a sister?”

  Bob smiled ever so slightly.

  “Meet Mathilda.” Bob reached inside his shirt pocket and retrieved a sweet little lump of fur—the tiniest glider I’d ever seen in my practice, even more petite than Georgie. “Today’s her one-month birthday, thirty days old.” He stroked the black stripe of fur that ran along her back.

  Mathilda had a perfectly pink nose and charcoal eyelids, and as I took her from Bob’s large, outstretched hand, she appeared even more fragile and slight. As I cupped her in my own, she remained unmoving with eyes closed. There was no mistaking that this baby glider, no longer than my ring finger, was sick.

  “I’m going to examine her, and we’ll go from there, okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Bob nodded.

  From where she lay in her cage on the floor, Lily forced open one groggy eye and looked up at Bob in weak protest.


  “You want to be held, too?” he asked. Bob bent down, unlatched the metal cage, and scooped Lily up. She snuggled against Bob and closed her eyes, as if the slightest movement exhausted her.

  This was a noticeable change in Lily since the last time I’d seen her for a routine checkup. Then she had been so full of boundless energy that I’d had a hard time examining her. When she wasn’t perched on Bob’s shoulder, she was scrambling up and down his brawny arm. Whenever I’d reach for her, she’d cling to the fabric of his shirt, and it was nearly impossible to pry her off. At one of my attempts to pick her up, she’d leapt into the air and landed on my head.

  Lily wasn’t the only animal drawn to my nest of curls. It was such an attraction to pets in my practice that Marnie had suggested a photo stream on our hospital’s website called Laurie’s Locks, depicting a variety of animals burrowing in my hair. Even I had to admit that the family of canaries perched atop my head was well worth capturing.

  “Where did you get Mathilda?” I asked, slowly stroking her fur.

  “I thought it was time Lily finally got a playmate. Sort of like an early Christmas present,” he answered, smiling slightly with embarrassment.

  “That’s rather sentimental of you,” I gently teased.

  “I’m a sucker. You already know that. I was walking through the mall on my way to Sears to replace my drill bits and get a new sander, and anyway, there was this guy selling baby gliders at a booth.”