>Subject: Help!!!
>It's a little after midnight here and I just got through cleaning up pools
>of blood and vomit.  This is there third time this has happened and after
>$600 and many visits to the vet no one can come up with an answer.  This
>has me and 2 vets stumped.
 
We went through a recurring nightmare similar to this with a female ferret
that had reached us from the humane society, by way of a small-time breeder
(personal friend of my sister-in-law) - she had been found outdoors, owners
unknown... Documented somewhere back around FML 20 I think...
 
Part of the problem was that she hadn't been spayed (which we already knew
and did something about shortly after we got her).  But even after this
was done, she had several recurring bouts, including seizures, partial
paralysis, swollen vulva (after spaying), diarhea et. al..
 
X-rays showed nothing.  Blood tests were consistent with a mild infection.
 
The vet gave up on those techniques after about four months of it, and did
an exploratory.
 
What he found surprised the hell out of him (and us).
 
It turned out that she had a mass of what could best be described as "soft
toothpicks" (though we figured it was probably some other form of vegetable
matter) in a ball lodged outside of her stomach, but still inside the
abdominal cavity.  These things were sharp tho somewhat flexible, and
some longer than 1".
 
[How his palp exams missed it nobody could explain - he's a highly regarded
expert on Ferrets in Canada.  If it was detectable by palp, he would have
found it without an exploratory.]
 
Once removed, she recovered quickly, and lived a long happy and healthy
life.
 
We were all stumped as to how it got there.  The vet couldn't figure out
how it could have possibly gotten to where it was by mouth.  It should
have perforated everything so badly that she wouldn't have survived more
than an hour or two.
 
The only thing I could think of is that she ran afoul of a porcupine
(quills remain sharp, but soften after continuous dampness), or some
very sharp splinters of wood through her abdomen, and somehow the skin
had healed enough that neither the humane society or breeder noticed.
 
It could have been a narrow bundle (or a single fat splinter) that
expanded after being in tissue for so long.
 
This is not to suggest that the vet drop what they're doing and do an
exploratory, only that something like this may be worth checking in
less-obtrusive ways.  Ie: a very careful palp exam.  That it could be
physical origin, not physiological...
[Posted in FML issue 3312]