I sent an email about this before, but my stupid email editor said it
sent it off and didn't, and I can't get as detailed this time, but
basically:
 
We did an exploratory on Tuesday to look at what appeared to be a liver
tumor on ultrasound for my Bandit.  In fact, it was a mass that basically
involved his entire omentum; it encompassed one kidney completely, much
of the other, invaded all of the liver lobes, invaded the stomach and
spleen.  It was extremely friable-bled when you touched it at all, and my
surgeon, after looking at it for a very long time, decided she couldn't
even resect it without the likelihood that he would bleed to death at
some point once he was closed up, and we certainly wouldn't have been
able to remove enough to give him better quality of life or even more
time (not that I would have done it if it had just been about length of
life).
 
If it had even just been the liver involvment, she could probably have
gotten it, and probably even got it from the one kidney, but it basically
encompassed everything in his abdomen; she was amazed that he was still
alive with that inside of him.  We took some samples and sent them off
for biopsy, closed up, and sent my tough little gentle man to the Bridge.
Everyone I work with was bawling (I work as a vet tech).
 
My little old man was 5 when he came to us, dumped three times before he
came to us, not knowing how to be a ferret, and fell in love with our
other guys.  He had a tough year this year, losing three of his friends
in three months, which he is always especially sensitive to, and he
loved to snuggle with other ferrets.  He once tried to steal a
double-yellow-headed Amazon parrot (he just wanted to stash it-he didn't
even break its skin), and had a fondness for Foamy Fries, N-Bone chicken
sticks, Bob Church's chicken gravy and, of course, Bandits.
 
We will miss him TONS.
 
-April and Shawn Campbell and Cora, Finnegan and the two
yet-to-be-renamed new guys (came to us as Bandit and Nicky, ironically);
missing Bandit, Nicodemus, Holly, Marley, Shannon, Renate and Sparkle
[Posted in FML issue 4891]