I had sworn that I was going to adopt ferrets rather than buy pet store
kits after my first ferrets passed away.  But I went to a Petco to check
out their ferret supplies, and was struck by a friendly yellow kit who
reminded me so much of my Cully that it was hard to walk away.  There was
another little kit, bright-eyed and intelligent looking, a sable who hung
in the background but watched everything very carefully.  The sable was a
small kit in a pen full of larger kits, so I assumed it was a female.  A
week later, those ferrets were still on my mind, so off to Petco we went.
 
I had wanted one male and one female, so the pair seemed ideal.  On
picking up the little sable, I was surprised to find it was a male.  I
checked out some of the females in the pen, but none of them had as
much personality as the little sable guy.  Plus, the other ferrets were
picking on him and he seemed sad and unhappy.  I knew that by choosing
the sickly one we were possibly setting ourselves up for future
heartbreak, but for that very same reason we had to give him a good home.
Home we went with Seti and Pan.  It took a little while to name Seti
(Setanta), but I had always thought after reading Phillip Pullman's books
that Pan (short for Pantalaimon) would make an excellent ferret name, and
it suited this little guy immediately.
 
Pan settled in right away.  I think he ate a pound of food in his first
week with us and doubled in size, catching up with Seti.  The two ferrets
became instant fast friends.  Pan was more hesitant and restrained than
Seti, but Seti was patient with him, for the most part.  There was no
question who the brains of the pair was.  Pan was very good at figuring
things out--I would go so far as to say that he had an imagination, that
he could picture things before trying them.  That imagination is probably
what also made him so highstrung.  He didn't bite, but he often hissed at
vistors, especially tall ones.
 
Despite using the new Merial vaccine, Pan had a severe life-threatening
reaction to his second annual vaccination.  He had to stay in a special
oxygen cage overnight and be put on an iv.  He came home with ulcers.
That was the second time he cheated fate--the first time was our rescuing
him from his failure to thrive situation in the pet store.
 
Some six months after that, I noticed a lentil-sized lump at the end of
his tail.  He had developed chordoma, but luckily his was only in his
tail and not on his spine, where it would have been fatal.  Fate was
cheated again.  He had the tip of his tail amputated to stop any further
spread of the disease.
 
Fate finally caught up with him around the end of October of this year.
He developed extreme lethargy and stopped eating, and his spleen was
enlarged.  Some testing at the vet's confirmed that he had lymphoma,
spread throughout a few of his internal organs and his abdominal lymph
nodes.  He was put on palliative care and we brought him home.  We saw
some improvement, followed by more decline, then a little improvement,
then more decline.  This cycling was very hard because our hopes would be
raised only to be dashed again.  Only two weeks ago he ran a little and
played in the tunnels with Seti.
 
Last week I saw some signs of intestinal distress and it was clear that
he was in pain, especially after eating or drinking.  We put him on ulcer
medications, but after a week it was clear that it was not helping.  On
Thursday, we brought him to the vet for anther ultrasound to see what
was going on.  I knew at this point that we probably wouldn't be bringing
him home--I could see looking at him that he was at the end of his
strength.  If we hadn't been coaxing him to eat, he would have died
already.  I expected to learn that the lymphoma had eaten through his
stomach or intestine.  What we learned instead was that his kidneys were
almost completely shut down.  None of us, including the vet, had expected
to see this as he was urinating normally.  But trust Pan to do things
unconventionally.
 
So Thursday night, we went to Angell Memorial to let Pan go.  Dr. Ritzman
was able to be there with us, as was her regular vet tech.  Because of
Pan's previous health issues, they had gotten to know him and really
liked him--oh, I know, they say that about all the ferrets, but I believe
it.  Pan was a special little guy who brought out the protective
instincts in us all (including Seti, who took very good care of him
throughout his illness).  When they brought Pan to us, it was terribly
clear to me that he was slipping away and that it was time to end his
pain.  He was dead even before the entire solution had been injected into
him, and his body didn't have the tremors and twitches afterwards that
I'd seen on Cully and Amelia.  Dr. Ritzman said that said to her that his
body was truly worn out, with no energy left at all.  I think it was only
his spirit that had kept him alive until this week, wanting to be with us
and wanting things to be normal again.
 
He was a very brave little ferret, even though he was so scared of so
many things.  His remains will come home to us sometime next week, but
that spirit of his is in my heart now, and I am a more complete person
for it.  It is unfair, so very unfair, that he should have been taken
away so young.  But I take comfort in having given him a good life, and
I take some small comfort now knowing that he is no longer in pain.
Goodbye, Pan, but dance on within me.
 
Regina
[Posted in FML issue 4784]