Today Ashling is having a sodium/potassium ratio and a CBC just as
follow-up since she lost both adrenals last year and is a long term
Florinef and Pred individual.
 
Scooter is more of a worry.  We at first thought that he was sharing
viruses with us.  (With all the stress we've been under -- job concerns
since how things will be trimmed down is unknown in terms of what entire
divisions will go, and extended family stuff -- since mid Dec, Steve has
had two viruses and I had one of those, another he didn't get, and an
influenza he didn't get.  A lot of people at the labs have been run down
and ill.) Anyway, he wasn't, at least for the most part.  His loose stools
which smell like home perm solution, are dark green and seedy (undiagnostic
aspects as we've all been taught) but not mucusy are still happening on and
off along with prolapses when it happens and they are more common now than
before.  He gets some rice water in his diet now to help because otherwise
he just can't have a normal BM.  He has lost a decent bit of weight and is
below acceptable but only by a bit now due to careful feedings.  Activity
levels up and down and plays well, perks a bit with sugars but that is
also not a level where it can be taken as any clear sign.  The wasting is
worrisome, obviously, and we hate him hurting when it flares.  Today he is
having whatever tests Joe decides to do: CBC, Fasting Glucose, urine,
fecal, etc.  It is only a Tooty-pie problem; no one else with anything like
it.  Hoping not something shifting in tum, but more hoping not something
wrong with some major organ we can't do anything about.  At this point want
to see what tests say, and see about doing a run in case of helicobacter
flare if logical.  You know the feeling.  Ideas?  Suggestions?  (Yes, this
is the one who got my last virus with the vomiting and such timing out same
as in me, but not the one who got the flu.)
 
Jumpstart and Seven of Six both more and more seem like they have adrenal
growths.  (He's got balding feet and Scooter tried to mate him late last
week; she is nomrally rather aggressive on and off toward other ferrets but
more so now, has a general thinning of fur and in just last couple of days
that thinning is more over the sacrum.) Are trying to time out operations
and tests so that they are done in order of need due to having limited
sick-ferret/post-op ferret/new ferret isolation locations, with Sherman
still using one since he is a slow introduction.  If it gets crazy we'll
have to buy another cage or two.  IMPORTANT QUESTION: has anyone tried
those folding cages for such situations?  Comments?  Suggestions?  (Space
is limited.)
 
This is what happens when people have more than one in the same general age
bracket; things go wrong at once.  Scooter and Seven of Six, though, both
came here with special needs -- one from a non-ferret shelter which was
going to destroy her and Scooty with a malformed paw requiring surgeries.
Got to take the needy when that is possible.  Not possible to take more
now, though.  It's always our hope that the paw was due to his novice mom
eating part of him during grooming as does happen at times, but it is also
possibly of a more serious cause such as genetic or a fetal disease, and
then he could be more prone to other health problems.  Usually, we just
like to say it was likely the mom, but when he's ill we worry a lot, a
real lot.
 
Will feel better once we know what is going on with Toots, and once we get
Jumper and Sev fixed up.  Money isn't a concern since we have savings for
rainy days and always work ferrets among the first things into any year's
budget plans, plus are willing to forgo things like travel to treat them;
it's the time and space allocation situation which is difficult for us with
so much at once.
 
Didn't sleep a lot last night and many nightmares, so put up with me today,
please.
[Posted in FML issue 3292]