Fernando left us last night.  I had scheduled him for surgery this
Friday, the soonest we could get him in this week.  His sonagram revealed
a large abdominal mass with a huge blood flow to it.  I had thought
possibly adrenal and Larry agreed.  Even though Fernando wasn't a good
surgical candidate I believed it was his only chance for survival.
 
Last night when I fed him after work, I noticed his left foot was cool,
not cold, to the touch.  I was afraid we were running into problems at
that point.  I massaged his leg and held him till he wanted down.  I
sang to him.  He probably wanted down cause he couldn't take any more of
my off key singing.  :-0 I then went and fed and medicated the others,
checking frequently on Fernando.  At 7:51 I gave him his carafate.  At
8:02 I went to feed him and he had left us.  sigh.  His left leg was
puffy.  My fear had come true, his blood flow had been blocked.  I
called Larry to let him know.
 
I had talked earlier with Fernando and told him that if he was too tired
to go on, to not worry about me because I was doing this for him and it
was more important to me for him to be comfortable, whichever way he
needed to be.  I told him that if he needed to leave us, I hoped he would
do it here at home and before surgery.  I didn't want him to go through
the somewhat stressful event of being anesthetized before surgery.  I
wanted his last memory to be of us and our home.
 
I told myself if Fernando left us before his surgery I wouldn't have
doubts about my decision to withhold surgery till he was a better
candidate but as it goes, I do.  The if's pop up no matter what.  IF I
had scheduled surgery last week would that have been too soon, or soon
enough?  I might have lost him then.  I was apprehensive about Friday's
surgery, he was so weak, so anemic, so frail.
 
Fernando was with us a short 2.5 weeks but in that time he learned what
true love and caring is.  The little ones accepted him and several
comforted him.  I showed him as much affection as he would allow and then
some.  I hope that he knew how much I wanted him to stay and live with us
and how diligently I tried to improve his health.  He had put on a bit of
weight, He weighed 1.75 lbs at our vet visit last Friday though that was
still severely underweight for as big a ferret as he was, and his fur was
silky soft.
 
Fernando is now with his companion who died 3 weeks ago last night.  I
hope he tells her that there are those of us out here that really do
love them and try to help them get well.
 
My deep condolences to all who have lost loved ones.
 
hugs to all. tle
Ms. Troy Lynn Eckart, F.B.S.
Ferret Family Services
http://www.ferretfamilyservices.org
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~sprite/ffs.html
http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/Haven/5481/
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[Posted in FML issue 4967]