Mr Flapper Duck

Why not?, originally uploaded by tifotter.

Kozmo’s results are due back Wednesday afternoon now. Or so I hear. We’ll see.

While we’re all waiting for his test results, I figured I might as well enlist some help. I have a feeling that he’ll be around a little while, but that he may not walk again. So I want some help building him a light-weight cart. I emailed a bunch of professors and mechanical engineering students at the Univ of Washington for help. Let’s see if anyone of them respond, shall we?

(Yes I am slightly koo koo for cocoapuffs, but I keep life interesting for you, don’t I?)

big blue eyes, originally uploaded by tifotter.

No word yet on Kozmo Kirby’s liver biopsy test results. They were supposed to come back Friday or Monday, but here it is Monday night and they’re not back yet.

Still hoping for good news. Stay tuned.

We washed his face tonight and he’s looking good. It’s hard for him to keep clean when he can’t bathe (he has stitches for another week from the biopsy).

coming home for now, originally uploaded by tifotter.

I’m going to get Kozmo from the vet. They took a biopsy of his liver. It turns out the mass/cysts/tumors… whatever… are all connected to his liver. It’s not good… well it would have been better if it was a separate mass. Still, it could be treatable depending on what’s causing it. So tissue samples went to the lab. I won’t know more ’til at least Friday, possibly Monday. For now, Kozmo’s coming home.

Kozmo is having surgery Tuesday, June 10th in the afternoon.

We’re not sure how his surgery is going to go.

So Kozzy got to do all his favorite things tonight.

He swam, ate some treats and preened in the sunshine.

Good luck my sweet Kozmo. I love you, kid.

XOXOX.

mass, originally uploaded by tifotter.

Well, for those of you who don’t know, Kozmo Kirby – Flapper & Georgie’s kid – has had some trouble for over two months now. He has had a limp since 2006, but two months ago it got much worse. Originally the vet thought it was related to his hip and arthritis, but then he got completely immobile. He has been to the vet about five times since early April. They’ve tried treating him for arthritis, immobilizing him in case he had an injury, treating him for botulism with anaerobic antibiotics and more. He’s had over 30 x-rays from all angles sent to specialists twice.

Now that they’re convinced it’s not an injury or arthritis, he went back to the vet for x-rays with barium. They kept him all day and fed him barium so his guts would light up and they could see if he had a mass.

The area right above his intestines looks like it could be a mass. They’re showing all the new x-rays to a specialist tomorrow. Their guess is it’s a pretty BIG mass displacing his guts (and possibly pressing on his nerves?) He is completely immobile and can’t walk at all. He can pull himself along with his beak and he can still fly a bit to get around.

If the specialist agrees it’s a mass, Kozmo will have surgery to remove it Tuesday or Friday. At this point I’ve spent so much money on him that I might as well do the surgery and see if it helps. He’s priceless, of course, and at this point he’s literally the most expensive duck on the planet. The vets guess that the mass is amyloidosis. I mentioned teratoma tumors and they said it could be that too. Or a walled-off abscess, or lymphoma, but his blood work came back normal. A mass could be a lot of things.

For now he is eating good again, and seems stronger (except that he cannot move his legs). He perked up once I let him hang out with the other ducks again – so that’s good. I have to keep O’Malley away from him because O’Malley will try to kill him (I love my killer dinosaur but he’s a vicious beast, too).

So keep Kozmo in your thoughts for the next week or two. He can use all the good juju you can send his way.

Thanks and quacks,

Tiff