Duran Moon had surgery yesterday and the strange cyst inside his upper eyelid turned out to be an abscess, just as I suspected. Cleaning it out was very involved and we're hoping it didn't result in any nerve damage. I'll have to wait for the swelling to go down to see how well his outer eyelid can blink (inner eyelid is fine).

Apparently, he also has an oral yeast infection, likely due to the infection taxing his immune system and possibly also brought on by his daily Baytril.

So... he is off Baytril and gets ointment on his stitches (which are purple!) twice a day. In addition he gets his mouth rinsed out with 28 ml of Nystatin twice a day and 100 mg Ketoconazole tablet once a day to get rid of the oral yeast infection. He'll go back for a check up February 10th.

In the meantime, he needed a full avian blood chemistry done to check the level of infection from the abscess and we had to do a culture on it as well.

Total vet bill for Moon was nearly $1000. Prescriptions today cost over $200 more.

Meanwhile, Young Matthew's bills are up to $700 and we have a culture out on him to see if that tells us anything else. If it comes back clear then it appears that testosterone levels are the culprit--having ruled all else out.

I spoke to Dr. Otka today about Young Matthew and his prolapsed phallus (about 1/2 inch exposed). We're going to wait for him to get a little stronger and then he will need to have his phallus reinserted and then get a few stitches (in the tissue surrounding the phallus) to hold it inside.

Good news is Young Matthew is eating a couple earthworms and even took a few bites of watermelon today. This is a big improvement from not eating anything. I still have to syringe feed him 30 mls, 4 times a day to keep him strong. My whole life revolves around these feedings... his life in my hands. Dear boy...

Tomorrow I will be driving to get Lulu the Toulouse goose from Nevin's farm and bringing her to Mystic Village. They have a 22 year old male Toulouse who needs a companion. I'm volunteering my time to unite the two lonely geese together.

I'll get up in the morning, change out Young Matthew's towels, feed him breakfast, put him in the tub for 30-45 minutes, load Isabel onto the school bus, let the barn ducks out for the day, give Moon his meds, come inside and blow dry Young Matthew (45 minutes), set him up in the sunroom for the day, drive 2 hours to Nevins Farm, drive 2 hours home, feed Young Matthew brunch, change out his towels, drive Lulu the goose to her new home (45 minutes), drive 45 minutes back home, feed Young Matthew lunch, change out his towels, do laundry, change out all the sanctuary water buckets, top off feed and hay, check daily emails, pick up Isabel from basketball practice, bring ducks back up into the barn for the night, give Moon meds, feed Young Matthew dinner, change out his towels, do more laundry.

Hmmm... busy day... Thank goodness we haven't been hit with a ton of snow like last year or I think I'd be falling apart right now. Phew!

I put out the February newsletter and posted messages on Facebook. When I sent it out we needed to raise $1700 for Moon and Young Matthew, but since then Moon's prescriptions brought the total up to $1950. We need to raise this before the credit card bill arrives at the end of the month. 30 days... Can we do it?

I really hope so...

Back on line because I just checked email and donations and commitments are starting to come through! I can't believe so many people are helping already! I'm so overwhelmed, my eyes are tearing up (could be because of sleep-deprivation, but I doubt it!).

Thank you Laura, Kristen, Phyllis, Tanya & Tim, Marlys, Tom & Deb, Julie, Alexandre, Scott & Kim, Susan and a few people are posting our call for help through their own website venues--thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I think we're at about $350 so far... I hope they keep coming... THANK YOU, EVERYONE for helping put Momma Duck's heart at ease. You are all so wonderful and amazing! You mean the world to me and to our ducks and geese!