Well, Daisy is now at the vet.  Exploratory surgery.
 
She was fine Sunday afternoon.  Sunday night, I went into the critter
room, and didn't see her in her cage...I rummaged through her bed,
nothing.  Then I saw the end of her tail sticking out from behind the
litter box...my heart curdled as I reached for her...she was alive,
but filthy with crap, and just kind of twitching.
 
I screamed for my husband as I carried her quickly into the bathroom so
I could see what was going on.  I washed her off gently, checking for
broken bones (did she fall out of her hammock?) spider bites, anything.
 
Nothing.
 
My next thought was, "Maybe she's in an insulinoma crash?  She _is_
about 8 years old, although she doesn't have the dots of death..."
 
Out came the honey...we smeared it on her gums, hoping she would perk up,
that this was just (just?) insulinoma.
 
Nothing.
 
Her eyes looked unfocused, and she was pretty out of it...as I held
her, she went into a seizure!
 
A panicky conversation about what to do ensued...
 
we decided not to go the emergency vet here, because they pretty much
have no clue about ferrets (oh, the joy of being in California, where a
certain domesticated housepet is illegal)...the last two times we went
to the emergency vet they had no clue what a ferret was--one of the techs
even thought it was some kind of rodent.  (!) That's one of the essential
problems with living (semi-rurally) in California and owning a ferret--
the dearth of good vet care.
 
She was seizing about every hour, and was pretty vacant and still the
rest of the time--I even arranged her in my lap so I could feel her
heartbeat through the baby blanket so I wouldn't have to unwrap her
and check her breathing, she was so still.
 
We called our vet early Monday, only to find that he was not in until
Tuesday...so we made an appointment (he's excellent, and one of the few
"furkid" vets around here) for today (Tuesday)..I pretty much just held
her and syringe-fed her water (she wouldn't take food, not even liquefied
"chicken gravy") from Sunday night to Tuesday morning.
 
Our vet did an ultrasound, and found a mass in her abdomen.  Blood counts
were high on hemoglobin, normal on all other counts, and low on blood
sugar (55).  Whether it is insulinoma or not, she still has the mass in
her abdomen, so we agreed for surgery to check it out and take it out if
it's a tumor.  We'll figure out the next step if she makes it through...
 
This last year or so has been a hard time.
 
Five of my sweet little furkids, in the past 18 months.  Too many losses.
 
I'm just kind of numb right now, not grieving yet...maybe I won't have
to: she'll come home, shaky and weak but all right, and I'll get a few
more weeks, days, years, hours with her.
 
Is losing a loved animal really less important than losing a loved human?
 
Maybe for some people...but I love deeply when I love, whether it's an
animal or a person.
 
I throw my heart over and it carries the rest of me through.
 
-cobalt
[Posted in FML issue 5322]