Just an FYI (it's been awhile since I posted, I know, but I am four
months pregnant-we're not going to find out what it is, but I'm
guessing human-am in school fulltime to finish vet school prereqs
and still working fulltime overnights as a vet tech)...

I had read stats that said the average life span of an insulinomic
ferret was 280 days from diagnosis when I had my first case. My own
experiences, fortunately, have been better:

I wanted to pass along that at age 4, my Marley had a partial
pancreatectomy about a month after his insulinoma diagnosis, and though
within another month we had to start prednisone, he lived another 2.5
years before he succumbed to lymphoma, and we only had to up his dose
a few times.

My Daisy, the walking case study (I swear she is going to get
future-vet-me and at least one other vet board-certified in exotics
when we do our case studies on her!), adopted with adrenal
disease/insulinoma and who has had a ridiculous host of other problems
(both adrenals have come out in the last year and a half; she had a
partial pancreatectomy for insulinoma, had another nondifferentiated
pancreatic mass removed, the scar tissue from which blocked her biliary
duct, which had to be resected; then she got an ileus; she has had a
million mast cell tumors, though only three gave her enough problems
that they had to be removed; and she has crappy kidneys and liver.
Despite all this, she is now at least 1.5 years since her insulinoma
diagnosis (and she may have had it longer than that-I got her surgery
right after adopting her); she is on prednisone, Prilosec, sucralfate,
SAM-E for her liver, and fludrocortisone for her lack of adrenal glands
(she crashes every time when weaned off of it-we have it on a low
dose). Other than that, she is in excellent health ;) and runs around
like a maniac. She is probably at least 5 years old.

Finnegan, my healthiest ferret into old age ever, was 5.5 years old
before EVER having ANY medical problem (I know for sure b/c I've had
him since I adopted him from a shelter when he was five months old),
when he was diagnosed with insulinoma (and upon his partial
pancreatectomy a month later, we discovered he had a yucky adenomatous
adrenal gland which we also removed). He had his surgery in May of 2006
(so 8 months ago) and has been asymptomatic and off meds since (knock
on MUCH wood); he is now 6 years and 5 months old.

Bandit, 5 years old and adrenal and insulinomic when I adopted him,
lived to be 7 years old, and was off meds until Marley died (I don't
believe it's a total coincidence that he started getting very sick when
he lost his best friend), and he died within four months of Marley's
death, when a pancreatic tumor (an insulinoma by biospy) basically took
over every organ in his abdomen. But until that point, he was doing
great.

Just some info.

Cheers,
April Armstrong Campbell (who misses you all!)

[Posted in FML 5500]