Hi gang--
 
After being diagnosed with lymphosarcoma 8 months ago, Rocky finally gave
up the battle at 1:15 pm today Sunday, July 2nd. :(
 
About 9 months ago, I saw that his right eye appeared to be swollen so I
took him to the vet.  The first diagnosis was a simple eye infection.
Well, the swelling didn't go away and after a couple of weeks it was to
the point where he couldn't close his eyelids.  We then set him up for an
appointment at an eye specialist.  After a few days of waiting for the
results, it turned out that this was a malignant tumor in his head.  There
wasn't much we could do since it was near his brain.
 
He still ate and drank fine and acted as his usual self.  I lubricated his
eyes a couple of times a day since the tumor started pushing on his other
eye.  Friday night, I noticed that he was lethargic and he was really weak.
We force fed him until I decided not to this morning.  When I got him out
of his cage this morning, he was breathing, but he had no responses
whatsoever.  I lubricated his eyes and he didn't budge.  I even stuck his
favorite Red Clover (he hates that stuff) in front of his nose and he
didn't budge.  I decided not to feed him but to let him go in peace.  I
placed him in his favorite ferret sleeping bag and laid him on the living
room sofa.  I let my son (now three) say good-bye to him and what really
took me was when he said "Bye-bye Rocky, you go see Junior now".
 
In case you don't know, Rocky is the "famous" ferret of Ferret World--
which used to be ferretworld.com.  I say famous because of the photo of him
typing on the keyboard and looking directly at the monitor.  This picture
really made it look as though he was typing something on the computer.
What made this photo great was the fact that it was not a pose.  He was
probably trying to get up on the computer desk by grabbing hold of the
keyboard and my wife had just happened to snap a picture at that moment.
 
Rocky was almost 7 and is survived by my very first ferret, Shelly, my
second ferret, Sassy, Bear (a rescue), and Spunky, my youngest.
 
Goodbye Rock
[Posted in FML issue 3101]