Dear Sue:
 
>As for Juliet , it doesn't look good.  The mass inside her right side is
>larger in just one week.  he feels that I should not do the surgery.  He
>gave me 3 options.
 
>1) Leave her alone, make her as comfortable as possible until it is time
>to let her go.
 
>2) Go for the exploratory surgery, see if it is something he can take
>out, take it out, but he feels that even with surgery she may not live
>but a few months.
 
>3) go for the surgery, and of course if it is something inoperable, don't
>wake her up.
>
>This is the hard part, making a decision and praying that it is the right
>one.  I would like your opinions on this one.  If I do the surgery , it
>will be $200.00.  This amount includes office visit, bloodwork and the
>surgery.
 
If you ask me, # 2 is always the most viable option.  Let me tell you
why....
 
With some benign tumors and most malignancies - if you wait long enough,
the ferret will get ill and die.  It is not just the growth of the tumor
that occurs, but what we call "paraneoplastic syndromes" - rapid weight
loss, ill thrift, muscle loss, and progressive anemia due to bone marrow
dysfunction.  Plus, you will never know what the tumor was, was it
treatable, etc.
 
Option 3 - Inoperable tumors are not very common.  New techniques such
as cryosurgery and vena cava ligation are making tumors which we though
inoperable just two years ago not just operable, but curable.  While I
would not totally rule out this option, I would make sure that the vet
didn't invoke it unless it looked like a total disaster in there.  You're
in there anyhow - no vet worth his or her salt would want to sew up a
ferret without making some attempt to restore it to health if at all
possible.
 
Option two - go for the surgery even if it is only for a couple of months
is the best.  First off - we don't know what type of tumor it is, so how
can we know how longer the ferret has?  While rapid growth is never a good
themg, you can't hope to prognose a neoplasm without knowing its identity.
 
And what is wrong with a couple of months.  One month to a ferret equals a
year to a human.  If you had a tumor, and someone said that if they removed
it, you could have three more years, wouldn't you go for it?  "I'd do the
surgery if I knew the ferret would live another year" is a sentiment I hear
quite a lot.  Not all tumor resections in humans result in a twelve-year
disease free interval - why would we expect the same of a ferret?
 
Whichever option you choose, I'm sure it will be the correct one.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, dVM
[Posted in FML issue 3297]