Hi everyone.  If you remember a previous post, my "Ferry" was diagnosed
with Insulinoma a couple of weeks ago.  My vet started him on Prednisone
at the time of diagnosis.
 
First Ferry was fine, and then symptoms started to re-occur.  Our vet
wanted to wait before surgery to see how he responded to the pred, but
Ferry continued to get worse (more frequent hypoglycemic episodes) and he
finally had exploratory surgery yesterday morning (or "salvage surgery" as
the vet would call it).  He found a nodule on one of Ferry's lymph nodes
and removed it (it was sent to pathology but the results won't be back for
about a week or 2) but did not remove any nodules from the pancreas nor
performed a partial pancreatectomy.  He mentioned something about the
color of the pancreas not being the way it was supposed to be.  I guess
the nodules were spread all over the pancreas.
 
Ferry came out of surgery ok but he is still weak (the vet told me he was
surprised he made it, so I don't really know how bad he saw Ferry).  Ferry
has diarrhea since the surgery (I guess it was pretty stressful on the
colon) and we are giving him fluids and baby food (turkey and chicken
based) each 2 hours or so.
 
Well, I spoke with my vet this morning, and he said that he wanted to stop
the pred until further notice because he didn't like the color he had seen
(I'm not sure whether it was of his pancreas or his colon).  I'm not so
sure that this is the right thing to do, and I wanted to ask for your
opinion.  My vet has treated ferrets in the past (besides my own 4) and I
trust him, but I don't know if I agree with that assessment.
 
We haven't given Ferry any Diazoxide yet.  Should we?  Ferry's diet right
now does not include any carbohydrates at all, but I've read that it
should include complex carbohydrates.  Should we give him complex carbos?
Or stick with the high-protein only?
 
Thank you all for your help.
 
Joe
[Posted in FML issue 3723]