Waffle Boy


Flapper’s blood work says he has high urates. We got a message that the vet wants to do an ultrasound, but we want to talk to the vet first. We thought Flapper had urates building up, and he did. But now we see urates in his waste, and that seems like an improvement. So… an ultrasound is not in our plans this week, unless the vet can explain why it needs to happen right now. We think that Flapper’s scar tissue and closed-off cloaca caused him to build up urates. But since the vet stretched out his cloaca on Saturday, he is now able to pass waste more easily and we think that means he has less of a build up of urates.

We can tell he felt terrible on Saturday, and as soon as we picked him up we could tell he was passing urates, which we know was not happening for weeks before that.

Now on Wednesday evening, Flapper is a new duck. He has energy, he’s playing, he doodles in mud puddles and he’s happy. All of that is a big improvement over Saturday. So we just need to talk to the vet and figure out why they want to do an ultrasound, and what’s next for Flapper. Stay tuned.

So far… so good.

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Let Us Never Speak of This Day Again

never
Flapper is home from the vet, and seems to be resting comfortably enough. He had some waffle treats and took his medicine like a sweetheart. We should have blood work results on Tuesday and know more then. Hopefully he will feel okay in the morning. He had a nice swim in his pool before I put him to bed tonight. But the night didn’t end there.

Let’s recap the day.

I brought Flapper in the house at 6am because he was lethargic and sleeping too much. He didn’t eat great for two days. He went to the vet at 9am when they opened and spent the entire day there.

At 2pm I had a furnace repair man at my house because the furnace has been broken since last Tuesday. It is about 48 degrees inside my house.

I started making waffles for the ducks while the repairman was there, and let the ducks and chickens out of their aviary so they could hunt for bugs while I watched them through the kitchen window.

ouch
The repairman couldn’t find the right part to fix the furnace, and while we were talking, O’Malley bit Olivia on the butt. The repairman left and will come back on Wednesday when the part arrives to fix the furnace. I have to order the part online. The house is still cold.

I picked up Flapper right as the vet closed at 4pm, returning home to find I had left the waffle iron on and left waffle batter in it. The house thankfully did not burn down. In fact it smells nice like waffles.

what
I got Flapper settled into his pen and put everyone else away to take a thorough look at Olivia and make sure O’Malley didn’t hurt her. Well… O’Malley managed to rip a 2″ diameter hole in her butt, so we put her in the car and headed to the night time emergency vet for sutures. Her butt looked very sore. The vet gave her some pain medication. Olivia is now home from the emergency vet with sutures in her butt.

Olivia is not happy. I am tired. Flapper is sore. And O’Malley is grounded.

Let’s never speak of this day again.

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Update #3: Biting

flap
The vet called and said Flapper is stable for now, and strong. They think what I am seeing is that he’s in a lot of pain. They looked in his vent and his cloaca is almost completely closed off from scar tissue. The opening should be about the size of a nickel maybe, but Flapper’s is so small he can’t pass waste and his digestion isn’t working right.

They want to try stretching it every week for awhile to see if they can enlarge it without surgery, which is just likely to cause more scar tissue anyway. So for now he is on antibiotics and pain medication and he can come home tonight. His blood work won’t be back ’til Tuesday, so we’ll know then how his kidneys are doing and how his other blood chemistry is, and whether or not he has an infection.

They don’t think he looks as bad as I do, as far as being lethargic and not moving. So what I’m seeing is probably his pain. Apparently he has been biting them with great force.

And that is a good sign.

We’ll know more Tuesday, and then we’ll try to see if we can keep him comfortable and out of pain for the long term.

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Update #2: Hospital

flap
Flapper is at the ducky hospital today. I hope the vets can figure out what’s wrong. I always assume the problem is his chronic plumbing issues, but maybe it is an infection like Chewy had earlier in the year. That scared me when Chewy had it and he acted similar to how Flapper is acting now. A random infection would be much better than problems related to his digestive system/chronic problems.

Flapper came in the house at 6am to hang out on the bed with me. He slept with me on the bed while we waited for the vet’s office to open. He is lethargic and listless. He just stands wherever you put him. I can’t tell if he is in any pain or not at all. He does shake his tail now and then, but those chronic problems do cause him discomfort even when he’s not critically ill. He ate a few peas and drank some water and we rested for a few hours. As soon as the vet’s office opened we took him there.

I made Flapper a waffle square for the road and he perked up quite a bit to eat the bits of waffle. When we got to the vet they said “he looks pretty active,” so that is good. Hopefully he’ll stay strong today. He’ll get oxygen and an IV if he needs it, while they figure out what’s wrong (if they can).

Keep your fingers crossed for us. Or your webbed feet.

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Light of My Life

light
The light of my life, my buster Flapper, is not doing well tonight.

Friday morning he didn’t quite seem himself, so I gave him a bit of pain medication to see if that was what was bothering him, because of his chronic plumbing problems.

It perked him right up and when I left for work he was swimming in his pond. But through the day I could see him on Flapper cam from work, and he was hiding in the corner of the aviary. He doesn’t normally do that. That’s a very bad sign.

Tonight when I got home he didn’t quack or come to greet me. In fact he was barely moving. I put all the other ducks away and got his dinner ready and sat with him for a bit. He sat with me and seemed okay, but not quite all there. But when I put him down at his food dish, he ate like a champ and laid down for a nap. So I left him alone.

I could take him to the emergency vet tonight, and I called them, but all they can really do is stabilize him until he can go to his exotic vet in the morning. So I decided against that since he’s fairly stable. I asked if they could rush blood work and they said no, it had already been picked up for the night.

So it’s after midnight, and I just went out to check on Flapper. He was laying down but not asleep. He does not look well at all. I sat with him for awhile and then I brought him in and gave him a few peas while I prepared a shot of pain medicine for him.

Again, that seemed to perk him up, and he got into his baby pool when I took him back outside. His digestive system really seems to be hurting, and I don’t know if he can get better. He was able to poop on his own, but he’s shaking his tail like it hurts.

I have a theory, but it’s completely baseless at this point. I know scar tissue has built up so much that he can barely poop. I think scar tissue from his surgery in fall 2008 finally built up to where it is blocking his ureters… the ducts to his kidneys. This is just completely my theory, but I haven’t seen white urates in his poop like I should normally see from him in quite a few weeks. I also suspect this because of his fairly sudden arthritis. I think his arthritis could really be built-up crystals from his kidneys being unable to evacuate.

Again, it’s just a hunch. And I don’t even know if the science is right. But if his kidneys have not been working normally for some time and it has progressed so far that he is listless… I’m very concerned that he’s not going to get better. It happened so sudden today that I’m in shock, and I hope I’m wrong. I’ve been dreaming about him all week though, so on some level I know he’s not alright, and I’ve been trying to figure it out. He has been a worry for years now, so I didn’t realize it was anything different, even this morning.

Hopefully I can get him into the vet in the morning, and maybe they can do an endoscopy and see if my hunch is right, or see why else Flapper is in pain and listless.

Tonight he was such a sweetheart. He is not very active, and he seems in pain, but somewhere inside those feathers he’s still his sweet, upbeat self and he sat with me tonight and chatted like it was just another conversation. He has always been such a trooper. I hope he can continue on for awhile longer.

I love him more than anything.

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The Five Phases of Flapper

In every day, there are five key phases of Flapper. Flapper explains what each phase means and how you can use each phase to your best advantage.

The first phase is posing.

posing
This is an important phase. This is a default phase for many uses. It can show how cute you are, but it can also be used to show disinterest. Use the posing phase when you want to be admired or when you want to send a message that says “mmm I don’t really care so much.”

The second phase is blushing.
blushing
This phase happens when your people tells you how cute you are. You can try to resist blushing, but it is very difficult. Also, when you blush, your people will just tell you you’re even cuter, and that just causes more blushing. This is an embarrassing phase when you are trying to act cool and casual.

The third phase is honking.
donkey honk
This phase is also known as “the donkey honk.” You can only blush in phase two for so long, and then you have to fight back. Phase three is where you strut your stuff. If your people thinks you’re cute and handsome, show off. Make sure your people sees your smile and your muscles and your belly. People like belly feathers. Honking is sure to get you hugs and pats. It also might get you treats.

The fourth phase is noshing.
noshing
If treats don’t appear after honking, you will need to build up your strength for more phases. Find your food bowl and nom nom nom on snacks. I prefer lettuces and peas during the day, and duck crumble at night in my pen. Every duck is different though. Right now I like waffles for breakfast. Mmmmm.

The fifth phase is snoozing.
snoozing
All that posing, blushing, honking and noshing can really be exhausting. So it’s important to spend time snoozing. If I can’t snooze on my people, I like to choose a corner, a plant or a rock to prop my beak up against, and then I can really snooze in peace. Chewy can tuck his beak behind his wing but mine always falls out, so I have to prop it up.

After the fifth phase is complete, you can start again at phase one.

______________________________

So those are the five phases of Flapper. The people have been sick here at Flapper’s house, so the blog has been quiet. We’re finally on the mend and should be feeling better soon. In other news, Chewy has had a limp. We’re not sure why… we left for work one day and he was fine. Came home that night and he was limping. It seems to be improving and he is putting weight on it just fine, so hopefully it will resolve on its own. Flapper is doing pretty well these days, thankfully, and the anti-inflammatories are keeping his arthritis pain in check.

More updates as we feel better. Until then, thanks for your patience and quacks.

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SUPER DUCK!

what
“The breakfast treats are missing!? SUPER DUCK TO THE RESCUE!”

waffles
“I will find you, missing waffles. Super duck will save the day!”

think
“This is my trusty sidekick, Chewy. Every superhero needs a good sidekick.”

Flapper received this super awesome cape from our friend Terrie. She makes all kinds of quilts and aprons and such, and sells them in her etsy shop. But we think super duck capes may be her new calling. THANK YOU for the awesome cape, Terrie!

Now back to solving mysteries and rescuing treats in the yard. More SUPER DUCK tales to follow in the future.

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Snuggle Time

Flapper made a run at catching Petunia today, and now he realizes that arthritis is indeed slowing him down. He can’t catch her anymore! She was pretty happy about it though. After Flapper gave up catching Petunia, he decided that he might as well hang out with me.

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Yay for Flapper’s Bum Knees?

flap
Flapper was scheduled to have an endoscopy tomorrow, but we put it on hold for now. He is pooping better and feeling better from his chronic plumbing issues, so we’ll just wait for now.

Flapper has had trouble walking for a few months, and for some reason I always assumed it was related to his sore tummy from his chronic abdomen issues. So on Wednesday I thought, “I wonder if something MORE is going on, in addition to the chronic problem.” That’s why we got x-rays done Wednesday night. I thought we could bring them with us to the vet on Friday for the endoscopy. I thought Flapper’s trouble walking was a sign that his belly was very painful and more serious.

But the x-rays surprised me. What they show is that he has arthritis in his knees. The vet looked at the x-rays today and said he has “pretty severe arthritis.” And while arthritis is painful for him, at least we know his chronic belly issues are still just a minor irritation, which is manageable. And at least we can now treat the arthritis separately, which will hopefully also be manageable.

Flapper had x-rays a year ago that didn’t really show his legs well, so it’s not easy to tell how long he has had this arthritis. But the new x-rays certainly do show a lot of calcification around his knee joints. His vet said “well it’s certainly not the worst arthritis I’ve seen, but it’s significant.” This makes a lot of sense to me now, based on how Flapper has been walking the past few months.

Flapper will stay on anti-inflammatories for a bit, and then we will try to wean him off those chemicals and get him on more natural remedies to help arthritis. Luckily his main vet has personally done extensive research on treating arthritis in parrots, which can really help Flapper. He will get some glucosamine supplements and flax seed oil, and we’ll share more about the treatment when we know more.

It may seem odd to be happy he has arthritis, but it’s better than what I had imagined. I had assumed his lumbering, labored walking was because his re-worked plumbing was causing him serious abdominal pain and discomfort. And while he does have trouble with that now and then like he did recently, it seems much better to know that his abdomen is not too painful, but that his legs hurt, and that is why he walks stiffly. If his abdominal pain was severe, he’d be looking at more surgery that has never been done on ducks before. And I’d be figuring out how to fly him to the best micro-surgeon in the US. He’d be in uncharted territory again with an uncertain outcome, and I’d be stressed out. And those thoughts were hurting my brain.

So for now, we say “yay for arthritis!”

Quacks and hugs as always,

Silly human

P.S. Special thanks to all of Flapper’s veterinarians and vet technicians.

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Flapper Update

x-ray 2010
You can click on the photo to see a larger view and to see a second x-ray view.

Flapper had an x-ray tonight, and he is scheduled for an endoscopy this Friday. He has had trouble with his plumbing since before he had his big operation in August 2008. It’s a chronic issue for him. But now after this new x-ray I am wondering if he also has some arthritis forming in his knees. He has had trouble walking lately, and I thought it was pain from his belly. But if it’s arthritis pain instead, that would make me feel much better about his overall health. I’d much rather know he has a little arthritis than to think his belly is so sore he can hardly walk. I don’t know for sure yet, but that’s my hunch. We’ll see what the vet experts say on Friday. I’m hoping he just needs a little clean-up to his plumbing and then we can treat his slight arthritis… but that’s all just my conjecture right now.

xray yard
When Flapper was brought back after his x-ray, the vet tech said “This is the most amazing, wonderful animal ever!” She raved about how expressive and affectionate he is. I love it when people meet Flapper and see that about him. It’s especially easy to see if he’s tired and ready for a nap, like he was tonight. Also as Flapper has gotten older, he has become more calm and trusting of me. He likes riding in his carrier in the car, and doesn’t seem to mind going places. He doesn’t make any of the stressed out noises, and he doesn’t pant like a stressed out bird. He just trusts that what we’re doing must be fun, and that there’s probably treats for him when we’re done. (I finally realized about a year ago that he doesn’t want to see out the window while we drive. There are too many scary, dangerous things to look at! But he is super comfortable in his closed carrier and he has loved riding in the car ever since I switched him to that.)

Flapper really is quite a special guy, especially to me.

Flapper’s plumbing looks better tonight and his anti-inflammatories are finally helping his latest flare up. We’ll keep you posted on what the doctors say on Friday.

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