It finally happened... Spaz is gone.
 
Back in '99, a ferret came to the Alberta Ferret Society that had a sorry
looking wound on his side.  He was a beautiful, well tempered silver male
that apparently the family dog had attacked.  The ferret was not taken to
a vet.  Whatever the real reason was for giving him up.  he ended up in
my home in January of 2000.
 
The sore did not really look like a dog bite as it did not fester or
heal like a bite wound would.  His previous foster homes had difficulty
dealing with injury so he was brought to James and I because we had a lot
of experience dealing with various medical issues in ferrets.  We had
never dealt with anything like this before but we were both up to the
challenge.  A month later we had the area clear of any scabs and was
smooth as a baby's behind.  A biopsy was done of the site and the results
came back... a form of cutaneous lymphosarcoma.
 
We knew at this time that whatever Spaz was truly going to need, the
shelter would not be able to afford his specialized care.  Hubby James
and I decided that the best course of action was to adopt him and take
over the specialized care, whatever it may be.  We were far from rich,
and wondered ourselves how we would find the money necessary to help him,
but it amazing what the human spirit can accomplish once a goal is placed
in the forefront.  No dinners out, no extravagant items, no movies...
just the basics.  But in return we got a very special little boy who
changed our lives forever.
 
I decided to contact Dr. Bruce Williams, as I thought he may have some
insight into Spaz's disease.  He had written about it on his website and
I decided that if anything was going to be done for him, that I should
pursue this with him.  He recommended surgery to remove the entire
affected site.  My vet felt he was not qualified for this type of surgery
and referred me to a vet who was a cancer skin specialist to assess Spaz.
 
In March of 2000, a wonderful and kind cancer specialist, allowed me to
photograph the surgery and the affected area was removed in one go.  Spaz
was left with a temporary side curl as his skin adjusted to the removed
area.  Pictures were taken during the surgery, as I thought that
something could be learned of it, and his story was posted on a web site.
What was so great about Spaz was that he never lost his energy or his
enthusiasm for wanting to rough house with the other ferrets.  He was
beginning to show me just how great a boy he was.
 
Pathology ended up being done on the removed site by two different labs
with conflicting results coming back.  In one case the tissue sample
revealed that not all the cancerous cells had been removed.  This meant
that the cancer had gone right into the muscle tissue covering the ribs.
This became worrisome.
 
By May there was hair sprouting only on the surgery site line, but not
around the site where he had been prepped for surgery.  In September,
Spaz had his left adrenal gland removed.  He had been scratching up a
storm (the first real itchy adrenal case I had personally seen) and had
been slowly losing hair.  It was hard to tell initially what was causing
this... the adrenal gland, or the lymphosarcoma, or was it a combination?
After his adrenalectomy, he never did grow any new hair back.  In fact,
he continued to lose more.  It was agreed that the right adrenal gland
probably followed its left cousin and so a new decision had to be made.
Do we go in after the right?  Spaz had had a bad recovery from the first
adrenal surgery and we almost lost him then.  (I was determined not to
let him go and stayed with him the entire day at the back of the
emergency's vet clinic keeping him warm with my hands and giving comfort
as he improved.  I also believed in my ability to send him my positive
energies so that he would make it.) He pulled though so whether it ws
his own will to live, or mine, he made it and we were blessed to have
him an additional two years.  A second surgery of this type was deemed
dangerous, and so, it was dropped for the time being.  I must admit that
for the next year and some, I debated long and hard as to what to do.
When he was strong, the urge to have the right adrenal removed was upper
most in my mind.  When he was down, I regretted not having it done
sooner.  It was a struggle between what was best for him, or what I
thought was best for him.  It was finally decided that no further
surgeries of this type would be done on him.
 
By December of 2000, Spaz was showing redness, swelling and puffiness to
his feet, especially on his front paws.  They would get scabbed and
cracked making walking painful.  I tried a number of make shift foot
coverings to help him, but for those of you who have a ferret know,
keeping anything on a ferret's foot is impossible.  I began to worry that
this was the last part of his cancer coming out and that we would lose
him in the months to come.
 
By April 2001, new samples were sent to Dr. Williams.  Spaz was getting
puffy ears, and his paws were getting worse.  The back feet now were
also starting to look red.  The news wasn't any better on the samples...
looked like the lymphoma was spreading and becoming more generalized.
For an instance I considered the option of amputation, but then the
instance was gone.  I couldn't do it to him... he was already unsteady
on four legs, so having three would be so difficult on him.  Just as the
thought came, it was gone, never to be considered again.  A new debate
began in my brain... what was quality of life for him?  He still ate and
drank and pooped and peed up a storm.  He was active and still acted like
he wanted to be a ferret.  I couldn't even think of euthanizing him at
this time, but what would be the right time?  I searched for signs and
saw none.
 
My determined heart began an new course, trying homeopathic type
treatments.  I tried the Colloidal Silver, but had to stop as it made him
very red.  I experimented with various creams and ointments.  We were
able to get rid of the puffiness in his ears, and settle the redness in
his paw pads down, but they would never completely heal.  Timmy's Tonic
definitely gave him energy for the first little while and then it too
seemed not to help much anymore.
 
I think it was August of 2001 that it was decided to try Lupron on Spaz
to try an alleviate the dryness of his skin.  Within 5 months new hope
was delivered in the form of the redness disappearing from his paw pads.
No more swellings, no more puffiness, no more scabs!  We were ecstatic!
Our little boy had relief and what seemed to be a new least on life!  But
by December that year, Spaz began to lose weight, and seem unsteady.  We
were afraid that his time had finally come.  We stayed by him, nursed
him, fed him, kept him warm.  That is all we could do.
 
And then in true Spaz spirit, he made a miraculous turn around.  He
gained weight, and gained strength... he was back!  Our little trooper.
He was amazing.  He was our energizer bunny.  He kept going and going and
going... He was our Timex... took a licking and kept on ticking... It was
as if he had such a great will to live... He was our miracle boy.
 
The last couple of weeks were showing signs that we saw the year
before... weight loss, and unsteadiness but this time it seemed
different.  He was now 10 years old and the reality of him leaving us
became more of possibility.  In his last days, we could nothing more than
change him on a regular basis to keep him clean, feed him his baby soup
mix as crunchies just wore him out, bring water to him as he would end
up in the water dish, and love him.  He was our baby for three years and
had we had it do again, we wouldn't' change a thing.  He was a trooper,
having gone through over 9 surgeries... he had his canines removed, mast
cells removed, three surgeries on his initial site... he just kept on
going.  He took each procedure with dignity and grace... he never
fussed... he never complained.  He was a trooper through and through.  It
was also that within his last days that we could see that he was trying
to tell us that it was okay to let him go, that he was finally ready.
And although we had prepared ourselves for years that this day would
come, there was a small part of me that felt that he was only in one of
his down times and that he would recover from this as well.  And then I
would look into his eyes to see that his fight for life was finally at
an end.  Then I knew we had to do the right thing and give him the only
gift we could at that time... the gift of peace.
 
Our lives will never be the same.  No more will we hear his distinctive
"tup tup tup" as he walked across the floor, exploring, and being a
ferret of senior years.  No more will we be honored to slip in his five
foot trails of poop and pee.  No more will we feel his gnarly little feet
scrambling at our feet wanting to be picked up to be cuddled.  Our little
Naked Mole Man, our Little Chicken Legs is gone...
 
Although our hearts break with you gone, we will never stop loving you
or forget all that you have taught us.  You rolled with the punches, you
didn't sweat the small stuff... you found happiness in the smallest of
things... a warm fuzzy blanket, the arms of a human, the taste of red
licorice, and the ability to still be boss with the other ferrets.
 
Rest in peace little one... you most certainly deserve this time of rest.
 
betty and james and their blur o'fur
for the love of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 3994]