Hi all,
 
One of our four ferrets has just been diagnosed with some sort of tumoral
growth in his abdomen.  Originally, he went in for an ultrasound of the
heart, since it seemed enlarged on RX, and also an ultrasound of the
abdomen, more specifically the liver.  The reason for this was that his
bile acids were elevated (112), liver enzymes were ok though, but we
wanted to make sure...
 
His heart turned out to be perfect on the ultrasound, his liver too, but
there was a large "mass" to be seen in his abdomen... Close to the bowels
and the spleen, but not seemingly attached to any organs.  We were all
thinking of lymphoma first, a needle-aspirate was done though, and there
were little or no lymphocytes, and lots of neutrophils.  Lymphoma wasn't
excluded yet, but with the neutrophils, we all hoped for an abcess of
some kind.  He received Baytril 10%, 2x 0,1 ml per day, during one week.
Than again an ultrasound, which showed the mass, not smaller at all...
(this was yesterday)
 
Today he had surgery in order to -so we hoped- remove the mass and send
it to the pathologist.  But it was impossible to remove it: it turned out
to be a tumoral growth on the mesenterium, there was a large blood vessel
going through it, and pretty close to the intestine too, plus, if it was
to be removed, there was a too big risk that the vascularisation of his
intestine would be disrupted too much...
 
It looked rather malignant according to the vet who did the surgery, but
only the pathologist will be able to say this for sure.  It'll probably
take a week or two though before we have the results...
 
I would like to know though if there is anything I can do for him in the
mean time?
 
Maybe some sort of holistic treatment?  I don't expect miracles, but
maybe there are things that can give him some support or slow the tumoral
growth?
 
I did a quick search already and came across "pycnogenol"?  Could this
harm him, or would it be safe to try it, even now, when we don't know yet
which kind of tumor it is?  If so, in what dosage?
 
All suggestions, of any kind, are more than welcome!
Thank you!
 
Wendy
 
PS: sorry if my mail sounds a bit confused, but I just received the news
today, so I am confused.... Also, I'm not a native speaker, since I live
in Belgium.
[Posted in FML issue 4701]