Well, she’s back. We’re amazed. In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d be writing this post this evening.

Having dropped her off at five past eight this morning, I expected that was the last time I’d ever see her. I blubbed, signed the forms and said my goodbyes, went home, blubbed some more and lay flat on my back watching Little Women and Anne of Green Gables via YouTube, trying to buoy my mood. There was a slim chance of things working out, but I was bracing myself.

Then around half past noon, the vet called. My stomach leapt, my heart banged so hard it almost leapt out of my chest. Rich took the call – his eyebrows raised and I could hear snippets of conversation that didn’t tell me too much, “oh really?” , “oh…ok!”, “I’m amazed”. I knew she wasn’t gone.

When Rich finally hung up he looked a bit stunned. “Well she’s still here…they managed to take off 600ml of egg yolk….she’s still pretty big but she’s made it through the anaesthetic and she’s standing up now. She’s not out of the woods yet but she’s doing OK”.

It was weird. We’d both been so geared up to lose her. We were getting ready for life without chickens for a while. And it had all changed.

As it wasn’t our vet that performed the operation, we were waiting for her to call later in the day when she’d been to check on Yoko. We waited four and a half hours before she came in for her shift and called us. She was happy for Yoko to be sent home. “We can go and pick her up now if we want,” Rich said, still looking a bit stunned. I couldn’t believe we were making the journey back in.

After waiting a while in the busy vet’s reception, we were called in. It was the second time I had to do a bent-backed hobble into one of the consultation rooms. “Bad back,” I said as I crookedly shuffled past into the room where my beautiful Big Bird was waiting in her carrier for me. We took the lid off to see her, the veterinary nurse explained how the operation had gone and how Yoko had managed to breathe on her own for a whole hour under anaesthetic. Her colour had remained good throughout, although she had quite a lot of oxygen during her recovery. I couldn’t believe how she was standing up, peering at me and looking ever so slightly peeved.

So we took her home with her Baytril, Metacam, and paid Maureen’s expenses – so were around £170 lighter. When Yoko got out of the carrier, it was starting to get dark so she hopped straight back in, demanding to be taken to bed. She drank, ate, gobbled grapes, took her medicine, pecked on some more corn and settled in well.

We’ve not really had a chance to see her properly walking around, although from the way she shifted herself around in the nestbox/carrier, she’s definitely got much more manouvrability than she did before. She’s still large, but a lot of the pressure is gone, and I’m hoping tomorrow we’ll see her walking with more ease and she’ll be just more comfortable in general.

This operation was a risk, and it turns out a risk worth taking. Well, it was a last resort really. And regardless of the outcome, I still feel it was the right thing to do. Yoko still isn’t completely out of the woods yet – there’s still a risk of infection, and we don’t know what’ll happen in the days and possibly weeks to come. Next week she’ll be going on Suprelorin, a hormonal therapy that will hopefully bring her internal egg laying to a halt, and effectively solves that problem. She’s not ‘fixed’ as such, but I’m hoping that her time with us has been extended and that her quality of life has been improved. Because ultimately, that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about keeping her going for our sake, it’s about giving her as long as she can have out of the cages, and for her to experience a good quality of life during that time.

I admit, having a break from hens and the worrying would have ultimately been good for me for a while. Now things are a bit more complicated because if Yoko looks like she’s going to keep going, we’ll get her a couple of chums because it wouldn’t be fair to leave her on her own. And inevitably, there’ll be more worry and stress…and enjoyment too. I just don’t know what the future will bring. For now, we’ll just concentrate on seeing how she goes on this treatment before we leap into anything else. It’s a serious decision taking on more hens, but we’ve learnt a lot and will be so much more prepared the next time we take on some more girls, whenever that’ll be.

But for now, I just need some quiet time. I need things to settle down, for my back to heal, for Yoko to heal, to just get back into a steady rhythm of life where things just chug along. That would be nice. And I hope Yoko will be here chugging alongside me too.