Hello,
 
I always told myself I woould never do this, but I hate to see my ferret
Taz wasting away in front of me, and I know other people on occasion have
asked for monetary help from this list before, so here goes.
 
Taz is a 5 1/2 year old male ferret who absolutely lives up to his name.
He has always been my primary troublemaker, if something has been gotten
into, odds are, he is the guilty one, and he has no shame.  I don't know
how many times I have come in and found him in the middle of something,
I yell at him, and he just looks at me like, so???, and goes right back
to what he was doing.  He is also my most needy ferret when it comes to
attention.  He follows me or my husband everywhere, although, when we pick
him up, he just looks at us, like, what are you doing, but then follows us
again when we put him down.  He has supersonic hearing when it comes to a
door being opened, and will streak out of nowhere to go flying through.
 
At least, he used to be like that.  About two months ago, Taz started
showing signs of insulinoma, with constant shaking.  I did a blood glucose
test myself at home, and got 52, at which point I started him on pediapred
that I had on hand left over from another ferret.  Since my husband is
somewhat challenged when it comes to taking care of sick ferrets, I
brought Taz back to school with me.  As I started to run out of pediapred,
I made an appointment with the exotic department at the vet clinic here so
I could get some more for him.  During his routine physical exam, it was
noted that his heart rate was only 72.  (Normal should be around 200) A
slight abnormal sound could be heard, but neither the exotic vet, myself,
nor the 2 senior students who listened to it could place it.  He also had
a glucose of 46 that day, so we increased his pred dose.
 
To determine the cause of the slow heart rate, an ECG and an ultrasound
were done, which revealed 3rd degree AV node block, also known as complete
heart block.  Basically, the SA node which regulates heartbeat is working,
but there is a block where it goes from the atria to the ventricles.  The
ventricles have a backup system in this event, so they are still beating,
but at a much slower rate.  So, his atria are beating about 4 times for
every one beat of his ventricles.  This is almost always fatal eventually,
and of course, very uncommon in ferrets.  The only chance Taz has of
beating this is a pacemaker.
 
I posted to the Ferret Health list, and Dr. Kemmerer in Florida.  Pretty
much what I got from the ferret health list was, he needs a pacemaker, and
that there was no medical treatment for it.  Dr. Kemmerer e-mailed me back
that if I could get Taz down to Florida, and come up with around $800
for the cost of the surgery, she could through donations, come up with
the rest that he would need, such as the pacemaker.  I figure it would
probably cost around $300-$400 to get Taz and myself down there and back.
While $1200 may be managable to some people, for me it is pretty much
impossible, especially if I add insulinoma surgery on top of that,
although he can't go under anesthesia for insulinoma surgery until his
heart is stabilized.
 
Some of you may remember me, I previously ran the Legion of Superferrets
of Nebraska ferret shelter for 3 1/2 years, and I have several brochures
on ferret care available on my website.  The only reason that I stopped
running the shelter, is that by taking care of sick ferrets on a regular
basis, it inspired me to go back to school to become a veterinarian so
that I could help even more ferrets.  So, at the moment, I am in my second
year at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine.  I have a
small apartment up here, and I go back home to see my husband in Nebraska
every other weekend.  I hope to do predominately ferrets once I graduate
as a DVM, and to educate other veterinarians about ferret medicine.  But,
because I am basically living off of student loans (my monthly budget up
here including rent, food, etc. is $500), I have very little extra.
 
So, what I am asking, if anyone out there would be willing, is if you
might be able to help me out financially so that I can get Taz down to
Florida for pacemaker surgery (the sooner the better).  On the off chance
that more donations were to come in then I would need, anything over and
above the cost of Taz's surgery I would donate to Ferret Family Services
(run by Troy Lynn Eckart) here in Kansas.  If not enough is raised, I
would return all donations, or donate them to Ferret Family Services, you
could specify what you would like done.
 
If you would like anymore information on Taz, or the surgery, feel free to
e-mail me, or if you want to verify who I am, and that I am a vet student,
you could probably e-mail Troy Lynn ([log in to unmask]), she knows who I am.
And, if you can help me out financially, I would so appreciate it.  You
can send any donations to:
 
Shelley Knudsen
2525 Stagg Hill Road
Manhattan, KS  66502
 
Thank you so much for anything you might be able to help with.
 
Shelley Knudsen
Class of 2004  KSU Veterinary College
[log in to unmask]  [log in to unmask]
http://www.tcgcs.com/~ferrets
785-565-9041  cel402-984-4217
 
"There ain't no limit in this life to how far you can get,
but if you're going all the way, you gotta break a sweat."
  - Chad Brock
[Posted in FML issue 3565]