I just wanted to comment about someone who recently posted her decision,
for the moment, to put her ferret on lupron and thus put off an adrenal
surgery for money reasons...your ferret will always need lupron, or else
the surgery, so in the long term, the cost issue is pretty much the same,
with the medicine eventually outpacing the surgery depending on how old
your ferret is (I never caught the age).  My ferret had adrenal surgery
3 years ago, when he was 4 1/2, and he has been symptom free ever since.
The surgery did cost $750 (a right side adrenal plus a G.I. biopsy, so
that is high for adrenal surgery).  but, believe me, I would have paid it
in medicine by now.  Twice over.  I have already paid that in medicine he
got as a result of the g.i. biopsy!
 
My other issue...Linus recently underwent surgery for suspected
insolinoma symptoms.  While he was in there, the vet did a biopsy of his
evil-looking liver (hepatitis, big-time), checked his adrenal (completely
fine), and wound up biopsing (is that a word?) his pancreas because it
looked COMPLETELY normal.  And, as it turns out, was COMPLETELY normal.
So he still has low-blood sugar problems plus recovering from the
surgery.  His vet is a very very ferret-knowledgable vet, and since I
have had a ferret undergo insolinoma surgery which did solve her problem
(for a year), I just went with it.  But, as it turns out, in this case,
it might well be Linus' liver messing up his blood sugar.  Has anyone
ever had that happen?  I did the whole thing with Linus' well-being in
mind, but I feel like it was a complete waste of time.  There's nothing
we could have done, surgery-wise, to correct the liver.  We could have
determined it was the cause if we had done a certain lab beforehand,
not the surgery.  Though I know it was only until the pancreas biopsy
came back normal the vet really suspected his evil liver.  And now we
have a better idea of how messed up it is, and that's it's due to his
inflammatory bowel disease, not a bacterial problem.  Still....he's still
having low blood sugar episodes (he had his worst one yet after surgery),
and it looks like I didn't avoid medication, even temporarily, after all.
PLUS the best medication for him to do, cortisone, might completely wack
out his liver.  Ugh!  And, now he has less of a pancreas to churn out
insulin.  Ugh.  Poor guy.
 
Minta & Linus
[Posted in FML issue 4035]