Luna’s fight against Aspergillus and foreign body

Hello, my name is Cristie and this is my beautiful duck daughter, Luna. Luna is one out of my five ducks. I love and cherish them all equally of course, but Luna holds a very special place in my heart. Luna is a Blue Swedish duck and is only 11 months old. She is the sweetest and most loving girl, and is always doing something to make me laugh. Whether it is the way she jumps at my feet to grab her favorite treats out of my hand (because she just can't wait until I make it to her food bowl), or the way she ‘waddle runs’ across the yard when she sees me coming. Luna and I have always had a close bond, and she enjoys snuggling with me in my lap. Recently as her health has unfortunately begun to decline, we have formed an even stronger bond than we’ve ever had before.

I noticed Luna was ill around 3 weeks ago when she began coughing and open mouth breathing. It was very cold where I live, so I moved her into an enclosure in my basement instead of having her sleep outside in her coop. I started her on some antibiotics, with the plan of waiting a couple of days to see if it would help her at all. Overnight, she started coughing more frequently, so in the morning, I scheduled an appointment for her to see the doctor. The doctor briefly examined her, asked me some questions, and overall concluded that Luna was suffering from pneumonia. Luna was given a treatment plan to continue the baytril I had started her on, and was given amoxicillin as an additional antibiotic, as well as meloxicam for inflammation and pain. I was relieved that I now knew how to treat her condition to the best of my ability, so I took her home and began her treatment.

A few days went by, and there were no signs of improvement whatsoever. If anything, she was doing even worse than before. The open mouth breathing was constant, her coughing fits were extremely violent and difficult for her to get through. The whole situation was breaking my heart, it's exceptionally difficult to watch my little baby go through that.

At this point, I decided to get an extra opinion on Luna’s condition from a family friend of ours who has specialized in caring for/and treating birds for around 40 years. I sent him some videos of Luna while briefly describing what was going on. He said that the way she was breathing pointed to a bad case of aspergillus. This would make sense to why the antibiotics weren’t helping, because they do not treat fungal infections such as aspergillus. He advised me to start her on an antifungal medication called itraconazole.

This was an extremely difficult medication for us to find, because it is generally only sold in 100 milligram tablets that are meant for humans. Luna’s necessary dosage would be way much smaller. This meant the search was on to find a compounding pharmacy who would be able to compound the itraconazole for me, making it the correct dosage for Luna. I called every single pharmacy in my area, and came to find that there was only 1 pharmacy within reach that was legally able to to do this for me. The pharmacy was close to 45 minutes away, and was privately owned, making their prices a lot higher (which is completely understandable) but I had no other options. The next step after finding a pharmacy that was able to provide us with exactly what Luna needed, was to get my veterinarian to write us a script for the medication.

I called the veterinarian who initially saw Luna, and informed them of my family friend’s potential diagnosis for Luna. They agreed with him and agreed to write the script, while sending it to the compounding pharmacy. The pharmacy didn’t have the itraconazole on hand, so the owner had to order it for overnight shipping due to urgency (in which I am so incredibly thankful to them for).

The pharmacist notified me that she would have to seperate the prescriptions into multiple bottles due to the shelf life of the medication. Each bottle is enough for approximately 4 weeks worth of Luna’s treatment, and costs around $90. This was another unexpected expense, but I knew she needed to have it.

After two days of putting Luna on the itraconazole, she was showing improvement. By day four of administering this antifungal, she was no longer open mouth breathing, and was only coughing very occasionally. At this point, I was seriously convinced that she was going to get fully better. Unfortunately, this progress was very short-lived. After about three days of good progress, she began coughing again, as well as open mouth breathing again. This was worse than it was originally. She stopped showing interest in drinking as much as she used to, and wasn't really moving around much at all. Especially if you knew Luna, you’d see that this wasn’t like her at all. The most worrisome of all of her symptoms was the fact that she stopped eating for me. Not only does Luna LOVE to eat all the time, so I knew it was not like her, but it’s a quality of behavior to look out for when caring for any sick pet, that tells you a difficult decision may have to be made.

After day 2 of her refusing to eat, I decided to take her in for x-rays to get an even better understanding of what was going on. We found enlargement of her heart, as well as a mass surrounding it due to the aspergillus. In addition to this, she has an unidentifiable object in one area towards her back end, that is pushing her gizzard forward, and we are struggling to tell what it is. My family friend said that he has never seen anything like it in his 40 years of practice.

A couple of days ago, I was beginning to believe that the only and fairest option for Luna is to have her put to sleep. Early yesterday morning, her euthanasia was scheduled, this time with a new doctor that I hadn’t yet spoken with. This veterinary office was closer to our home, and I didn't want to put Luna through an hour-long car ride with the state she was in. The doctor requested her x-rays just to take a look and confirm that this was the right decision.

We thankfully had our first warm day in a long time where I live. I took this time to bring her outside into the sun, and to spend time with her other duck friends. To my surprise, as if a sign from above, she began to eat with her friends. Throughout the day, she began coughing less, still open mouth breathing, but began to show me more improvement yet again.

I decided to call the doctor, to explain this new progress. I asked him if he would be able to look over her x-rays before we brought her in. I expressed to him that I wanted to give her some more time, only because of these new improvements. After reviewing the x-rays with me over the phone, he agreed that he had also never seen anything like the foreign body before, and he definitely noticed the mass around her heart. He agreed with me that if she hadn’t been eating, and showed no improvement at all, that maybe it would be the right decision to put her to sleep. However, due to the fact that she did indeed start eating again, and is showing signs of wanting to continue the fight, we both decided that we wouldn’t give up on her just yet.

This is as of now, the latest on her condition. I am told that Aspergillus is extremely difficult to treat, and can even flare up and get angrier as it is being treated. Though, it does not mean that she cannot beat it, and recover from it.

Moving forward, she’s going to continue on her baytril, and continue on her itraconazole. We are keeping our fingers crossed and praying for her. Due to her coughing, giving her oral medication is extremely nerve-racking. I have to be super careful that she does not aspirate, because it will only make the situation worse by further crowding her lungs.

While there is no way to get around giving the itraconazole orally, there are injections of baytril that can be given to her through the breast muscle. We would have to find a pharmacy that is willing to sell us a bottle of baytril along with a package of needles, and have our veterinarian call the script in for them. She will need to have one injection of this medication daily.

If she can in fact beat the Aspergillus, it is going to take her a very long time, especially due to the mass around her heart that is making it even harder for her to breathe. She could require the itraconazole for months.

My family and I are going to struggle to continue to afford her medications, especially with the antifungal medication being almost $100 a bottle. We would also have to buy the injectable form of baytril as long as needles (switching from the oral baytril she has been on). When she is free of the aspergillus, she will have to undergo surgery to find out (and most likely remove) the foreign body that is pushing her gizzard forward. Her healing journey is going to be very tough for her, and it will be extremely difficult financially for us. We are going to fight with her, and try to do everything we can, because we all love her so much.

Luna‘s GoFundMe goal is starting at $700. We would be using the funds to pay for her medications and to start saving towards her surgery that she will need. We are so extremely grateful to anybody who is willing to help or show their support for Luna. I will be attaching some of my favorite photos of her, and will be sharing any updates on her condition as time passes. She is truly one of my best friends, and one of the sweetest little ducks in the world.♥️