Teenage boy forced to give up pet parrots after lung disease diagnosis

A bird-obsessed boy spent a month in hospital after his beloved pet parrots gave him a serious lung disease.

Kenny Kajan, 13, grew up with four parrots at home, but can no longer go near birds or even sleep on feather pillows after he began gasping for air.

His parents first noticed signs something was not right in March after he developed flu-like symptoms and felt ‘breathless’.

Doctors initially thought it may be an allergy or even a panic attack, but the teenager’s symptoms worsened over the summer.

In August, he was taken to hospital in the middle of the night, hours before being placed on oxygen.

Kenny was eventually diagnosed with hypersensitivity pneumonitis, a rare disease often found in older people, especially those who have worked with birds or have been exposed to certain chemicals for many years.

The teenager, from Leith, Scotland has had to give away his pet parrots, three Cockatiels and one African Grey.

His mother Iveta Kajanova, 50, had grown up with birds all her life and dreamed of breeding them and owning an aviary.

She described her son’s anguish at having to part with the animals, which he had lived with from the age of nine.

‘Parrots were my hobby and my life. But I want my son to be healthy’, she said.

‘It was very hard when he had to say them [the parrots] goodbye. He cried and said ‘I hope you have a good life’.’

She added that Kenny’s disease had only been picked up because of his exposure to his pets, but could have manifested itself later in his life.

‘They said it is nobody’s fault because even if you don’t have any parrots he could have had this reaction later’, she said.

‘The parrots saved his life because we knew the diagnosis later.’

Kenny, who still hopes to become a biologist, has returned home after one month in hospital.

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