To Lucky Charm (Dec. 1, 1994 -- Oct. 15, 2001):
When I first held you, I had just lost my first ferret, C-pi.  I came back
the next morning and paid for you and asked the store to hold you for me
while I attended a meeting.  It was January 1995.  I was worried that they
might accidentally sell you to someone else.  You were a Marshall Farms
girl, a world traveler from New York.
 
When I brought you home, I quarantined you from Esperanza to make sure
you weren't sick.  During that time, I sat cross-legged on the floor and
watched while you played.  You hid under my legs and darted under the bed
and ran around the room.  Within a few minutes, you started choking and
throwing up your food but still kept running and playing.  I put you in
your carrier to make you rest.  This went on for weeks.  That was when you
and I bonded - while you drifted off to sleep, you would look up at me now
and then to make sure I was watching and I would adore you and tell you
how precious you were.  The vet, Dr. Bob Doak, gave you antibiotics but
couldn't find anything wrong.  He finally decided you would probably grow
out of it, and you did.
 
When I took you with me for a hike with the New Mexico Mountain Club, I
took a bathroom break behind a bush and you took a bathroom break beside
me.  You continued to do this in the bathroom at home.  During the hike,
you rode in the hood of a lady's jacket in front of me and watched me walk
behind you.  At the end of the hike, you curled up inside my wool-knit hat
and you were so adorable.  You liked hiking and would walk beside me on
the trail.  One of your favorite things was to curl up in a clump of grass
and take a nap.
 
At home, you waited with your sisters outside the shower and licked my
feet when I got out -- I always made sure to dry my feet last and thank
you guys for cleaning up my act.  You kissed my face a lot.  You grabbed
my socks with your teeth and pulled at them while they were on my feet.
You loved to pull the leading edge of the toilet paper and unwind the
roll.
 
You started something special on the Ferret Mailing List when you hauled a
4- to 5-pound drill across the living room floor.  It was easily twice as
heavy as you were.  That"s when you became Lucky Charminator.  ("Hasta la
vista, babee.  I'll be baack.  And I'll bring the refrigerator.")  Pretty
soon, you started a ferret union where ferrets could present grievances
petitioning their owners for better working conditions -- more raisins,
play time, inspection rights, toys, nap time, Ferretone- dispensing snack
machines, hard hats fitted with halogen lamps, airline tickets to attend
contract negotiations.  You were the union's first president.  You held a
vote and selected the name CHAOS, Creating Havoc and Other Silliness.
 
When people back East were getting too much snow, you sent telegrams to
the FML asking them to get a big blower and blow some of it out West so
you could play in it.  Once, you walked on the keyboard and posted a
secret code to the FML.  You wrote haiku poems about chasing kitties and
tipping cows.  You posted a note about how important it was for ferrets
to bring cheer to their humans.  You redefined the meaning of "colloidal
silver" as what happened when you, my silver mitt, collided with and
became suspended on top of your brother, Chocolate Moose, the dispersal
medium.
 
You made friends everywhere you went.  You never bit anyone, except the
other ferrets when you were playing.  The vets always seemed to like you
best.  Your nose was jet black -- not pink or freckled like most ferret
noses -- and it matched your little silver mask and the silver-tipped fur
between your ears on top of your head and the silver-tipped fur on your
legs above your white stocking feet and your silver-tipped tail.
 
Whenever you had surgery, and you had several surgeries, I would tell you
to fight and hang in there and I would be waiting for you.  You seemed to
understand.  When you started losing fur, a local vet removed your left
adrenal gland and your hair did not grow back.  None of the vets here had
much experience with right adrenalectomies.  I took you to Colorado State
University, where Dr. Jeffrey Wimsatt took care of you.  He was up on all
the latest research.  Rather than ligate your vena cava, they cut into it
and sewed it back together again.  Your heart nearly stopped while you
were anesthetized for two hours but they revived you and you made it.
Your fur didn"t grow back completely until I put you on Lupron.  None
of the vets wanted to give you vaccinations after that because with no
adrenal glands, they were afraid you might have a reaction.  So I had your
distemper titers checked and they were way above normal.  I didn"t worry
much about rabies because I never let you out of my sight, except for the
time when you and Esperanza were really young and took turns disappearing
down the street.
 
Then, a little over a year ago, your blood sugar started dropping.  That
was when I drove you cross-country to see Dr. Charlie Weiss because he
said he could do a partial pancreatectomy in less than 20 minutes.  I
didn"t want you to be under anesthesia any longer than necessary.  He
did the surgery in June of 2000.  After that, I got together with other
ferret owners in New Mexico and arranged to have Dr. Weiss come out and
demonstrate cryosurgery with Dr. Michael Treitler in Santa Fe.  By then it
was Halloween and you needed another partial pancreatectomy -- Dr. Weiss
said you seemed to have an aggressive case of insulinoma because usually
the surgery arrested the disease for a longer time.  He removed some
ectopic adrenal tissue and from then on your adrenal disease was cured.
You no longer needed Lupron, and you grew the most luxurious coat I've
ever seen.  Last July, Drs. Weiss and Bruce Williams conducted a third
partial pancreatectomy, and even with 40 percent of your pancreas
remaining, within a week you started having seizures.
 
I have a file folder so thick with medical reports and receipts about you,
I'm not even sure what's in there.  You survived sub-Q fluids for possible
kidney problems and a giardia case that infected all five of you from who
knows where.  I'm not sure what I'll do with my life now that you won"t
be here needing me to hand-feed you and give you your medicine.  I would
gladly do it all again just to hold you, stick you inside my shirt or
carry you around in a fleece bag around my neck, and watch you while you
sleep, haul toys under the bed in competition with your brother, Chocolate
Moose, and follow me into the kitchen for a treat.
 
In the end, I let you go because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you
suffer from a disease that could not be cured.  I didn't want you to die
from a seizure or a coma.  I will always love you.  Even though I try hard
to treat all of you equally, you are probably my most special ferret.  I
will miss you very much.  If there were one thing I could change about my
time with you, it would be that stem-cell treatment would be available to
replace your damaged pancreatic tissue.  I hope that you have gone to a
better place with your sisters and friends and that someday, your brothers
and I will be reunited with you.
 
I love you, Lucky Charm.  I am grateful for the time we had together.  You
will always be my special, teeny, tiny girl who was barely 6 inches long,
not counting your tail, when I met you.  Back then, I could fit you in the
palm of my hand.  But you have taken much more than 6 inches from my heart
and my world is a much smaller place without you.
 
Good-bye, my sweet honeybunches.
 
Your mom, Linda
[Posted in FML issue 3573]