(this is from Susie Lee-Hurley, with Wes Hurley, and)...
 
This is the story of Molly Blue-Angel.  The tiny ferret who Wouldn't Die.
In January of the year 1999, a small, elderly silver lady-ferret was
brought to Wes Hurley and Susie Lee-Hurley's house by a member of the
Navy's Blue Angels team who was being transferred to California, and
glad to find someone like us who could look after his then 7 years old
companion-ferret.  He'd had her checked by the bases' vet, who didn't
give her more than two weeks to live, at that time.  Her former Blue
Angel friend said she wouldn't eat any other food but raisins and
sometimes a lick of ferretone.
 
So Molly Blue-Angel came into our permanent care, and she was somewhat
desperate: almost purely skin-and-bones, blind and very weak, we had her
to our vet's to see what could be done to help or at least comfort her.
Turned out that she had severe intestinal ulcers, and had lost several
teeth, possibly from calcium loss plus the grinding that ulcer-pain
brings on.  But she wouldn't die.  Quickly we had her on antibiotics and
carafate and tiny drops of pepto-bismol and chicken babyfood with
ferretvite softened into a drinkable soup and given with a tiny doll's
bottle, a little every hour in between or with whatever meds were on her
schedule by our somewhat more ferret-knowing vet.  Then, after the first
desperate two days, I fed her every hour-and-a-half, then the fourth
day, every two hours, and a bit more at a time.  By the end of the week,
Molly Blue-Angel was beginning to fill back out from her former skeletal
appearance and behave more like an active and spritely ferret.  On a
final visit before shipping out, her former owner was much comforted at
his little friend's recovery and apparent happiness with us.
 
Molly never seemed to recover all her mental faculties, though, for she
would only very occasionally eat any kibble along with her other two new
cage-mate friends, (Coco LeCreme, who was just one year younger, 6 years
old in 1999, and Zipper-Goes-Faster, another year-younger than Coco
LeCreme).  However she always still liked to nose out and munch a good
juicy raisin.
 
And so began a habit I'm finding it very hard to break, feeding Molly
Blue-Angel every four hours a cooked, softened rice-and-chicken kibble
with medicinal herbs added which are first cleared and approved by our
vet, and a few drops of colloidal silver to safely kill any gram-negative
bacteria so that I can blend in to this mixture several whole raw eggs.
Four years.  Every four hours for the last four years, it's been "time to
feed Molly Blue-Angel", and, also others who have come under our wing of
caring, and feeding.  She's made every moment well worth it.  The last
two weeks, she'd become extra-frail, and had been having more difficulty
swallowing, I would go verrry slowly with her feeding while she'd wrap
both tiny front hands around one of my fingers and cling tightly as a
tiny, tiny baby.
 
This morning, at the very ripe age of ten years and two months old,
she gently breathed her last breath.  But she still isn't really dead,
for her bright little spirit is already hovering like a tiny star,
glinting around the house.  A Blue little star, flashing and zipping
in the newfound freedom of it's indomitable little spirit.  It's Molly
Blue-Angel.
 
(to see two pictures of Molly Blue-Angel, and one of her with one of her
beloved cage-mates, go here...)
http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/ferret_rescuer/index.html
Thank you.
[Posted in FML issue 4073]