Hi everybody
 
My little Igor was put to sleep on 6th of December.  He'd had a tummy full
of blood stained fluid since August... There was up to 500g of fluid in
his tummy.  In the end he had problems breathing and looked like he really
didn't feel well and didn't want to go on so we had him put to sleep.  I'd
asked my vet to do a *full* post mortem like Dr Williams had told me to.  I
thought that meant that the vets take tissue samples of all organs (even of
the ones that look okay) and send them off to the lab.  I'd been asking at
the vets for over 2 weeks whether Igor's lab results had come back and then
last Friday I was finally told that the vets hadn't sent anything off!  I
was really upset about that, I thought they'd automatically send tissue
samples off...
 
When Louise had done the post mortem, she phoned me and said that the
pancreas was one big tumour (size of a big walnut or small satsuma) and
parts of it had calcified and there were also tumours on the liver.  She
was 95% certain that the primary tumour was the pancreas.
 
My question is: should the vets have sent tissue samples off when I asked
for a full post mortem?  Or do you have to tell the vets to send samples
off if you want it doing?  Are there different kinds of tumours that can
happen in the pancreas?  I mean stemming from different cells?  Or was it
okay for my vets to just have a look inside and not do anything else?
 
Hope you can help me.
 
Best wishes from
Ulrike
and Jilly, Jack, Bella, Tom, Mason, Baby, Dana, Fox, Reno, Rose, Jasmine,
Barney and Spike
 
Missing Angel, Hope and Igor
 
West Wales Ferret Welfare
http://www.ferretlove.freeserve.co.uk
Last update 20/12/00
[Posted in FML issue 3280]