Mary, Hopefully, your vet is wrong.
 
Vets do get a feel for what they are seeing and can take leaps as a result,
but as your vet apparently pointed out you can NOT be sure that it is any
type of lympho let alone JL based on nothing but those blood tests.  Also,
from our experience and reading, JL is rapid and the symptoms when they
appear are severe so that doesn't mesh up with your saying that she is in
great shape now.
 
What I am saying is that you don't know enough at this point to convince
yourself that Freya must be encountering the worst situation possible.
 
Book recommendation: _The Natural History of Medicinal Plants_ by Judith
Sumner, publisher Timber Press: Given the number of people here who use
herbs on their ferrets this book provides an important insight into good
and bad and helps clarify choices forma perspective untouched by other herb
books.  It is not a book to be used as a medical guide.  For that the best
ones (for printing precautions as well as uses and for providing actual
study infomration include: _PDR for Herbal Medicines_, _Tyler's Herbs of
Choice_ and _Tyler's Honest Herbal_.
 
Got a bit more readin done in the book on the Natural History of Medicinal
Herbs.  Leanred more abut cases in which people thought the plants had
clues: like scaly things thought to heal scaly skin, heart shaped things
thought to heal the heart, and such, also learned that the Ancient
Egyptians and Ancient Greeks had more herbal use and better documentation
than the Ancient Romans or the Europeans of the Middle Ages (and that
over-harvesting resulting in extinction existed as early as during Roman
times for some species -- so it is not a surpise that now-a-days there are
pushes to increase horticultural collection of some herbs which are
over-harvested inteh wild such as Echinacea in Montana despite that being
easily grown in gardens and farms), and that even later than the Middle
Ages many of the herbals written were based upon writings about Southern
European plants and then northern writers simply went out and found
something locally that looked similar and assumed it was the same thing
with the same action.  Plus, once publishing really got going publishers
would alter texts to suit their markets -- sometimes after a few editions
taking a book with actual good data in it to one that was without any
merit.  As recently as jjust a few centuries ago people werfe still thining
that geese were grown formbarnacles and that ferns produce seeds at
midnight on one holy night.  As recently as late in the 19th century there
were so many bad herbal medications (some dangerous) that Congress passed
safety statemtns (withnot power behindthem --simply statements of outrage)
and the Shakers made an excellent living by growing and preparing reliable
herbal supplies ofr physicians that were widley praised.  Sure makes it
obvious why there are so many false claims mixed in with the good ones and
why testing is so very, very needed.  having taken time out to burn upwith
fever I'm now on an early section which is about finding new (insome cases
to standrard meds and in some cases to any medical approach) plant based
compounds.  Did you know that it is estimated that at least 50 plant
species are driven to extinction each day?  Only one half of one percent
of plants are well studied for medicinal properties that could help our
ferrets orourselves.  Yet, they have shown themselves to be a marvelous
source of new and improtant medications.
 
Great book; VERY worth buying, and I have only begun it!  If I have found
this much of potential use topeople here in so few pages imagine what the
rest must hold!I'llleave it to you to buy a copy or borrow one form a
library tolearnt he rest.
 
Ed wrote:
>After that we'll have to wait until year 2010, when we can do this all
>over again.  ... Kinda' neat, huh?
 
In year 2011 we can twice note the time 11:11 on November 11 of the year
'11 so it will be: 11:11, 11/11/11.
[Posted in FML issue 3287]