I read the article in the Ferrets Magazine's March/April 2008 issue
"What's New with the Big 3" by Dr. Bruce Williams and was inspired to
find a cure for two of my ferrets. Ginger has had total hair loss for
about a year and a couple of months ago Fox started with the same hair
loss pattern. Ginger had her left adrenal gland out years ago and did
well for several years. Then the hair loss began. We started monthly
lupron shots and that worked for a while. Then the hair loss
accelerated and we started melatonin implants but they didn't help
at all.

We don't have a vascular surgeon in Anchorage so surgery on a right
adrenal wasn't considered an option. A few weeks ago I started emailing
a vet in North Carolina Dr. Grant who is working with a lymphoma cancer
protocol called the Cornell Protocol. She has seen 7 very successful
treatments for lymphoma. Dr. Grant is also working on a different
treatment for the adrenal. With this encouragement I took Ginger to
a vet here who has ferrets herself and she was willing to try. Last
Tuesday she did exploratory surgery on Ginger and discovered the cancer
was everywhere - liver, spleen, and the right adrenal which was huge.
She just closed her up and gave her a few days - maybe weeks at the
most. Of course I was heartbroken - yet not surprised. I emailed Dr.
Grant and she encouraged me to still try the chemo. My vet here was
willing to talk to Dr. Grant and gave her a call. We had a long talk
first about what would be acceptable. We agreed that anything that
would make Ginger weaker, be very painful, or diminish her quality
of life would not be acceptable. They talked and we learned that the
Cornell Protocol is delivered subcutaneously (which is easy -- you
don't have to find a good vein etc) and doesn't have major side
effects. So on Friday Ginger went in for her first treatment. My little
trooper had recovered well from the surgery and was active and eating
cheerfully. The biopsy came back as a lympocarsoma and that appears to
respond well to this treatment. Every Friday she will go in for drugs
or tests and every night she gets 1/2 cc of pred. Some weeks she will
only get a CBC (blood test) and there isn't any shot. Some weeks there
are two drugs administered and other weeks just one.

On the second treatment day Ginger was already more active and happy.
Before this treatment she would wake up and eat and then go right back
to bed. Sometimes she made it all the way to our bed but that was it.
Since last Saturday, her first treatment day was Friday, she has
trekked downstairs daily to check out the action (and get a treat of
wet Marshall's ground up. Ours always have four kinds of kibble out-
Marshalls, Totally Ferret, Zupreme and 8-1 but the wet Marshall's is
their favorite.) I am amazed at her response and so glad the treatments
don't make her sick. I have given pred before to my darling Butter and
he hated it with a passion. Even with a pharmacist compounding some
with bubble gum flavor he would still clench his teeth and flip it
all over the place. Then he would go around melodramatically gagging
whenever he caught my eye and glaring at me as if to say "See what
you've done, this stuff is bad!" Ginger is an easy med patient with the
antibiotic - she will just lap it up - but with the pred I am having to
scruff just a little. If Ginger were my first little weasel patient I
would be thinking that I am a great caregiver and be taking this for
granted but really - I know how lucky I am. And Ginger too - it was so
stressful to Butter for me to have to wrestle him down to make him take
his meds. It is as if she knows this might save her.

When I was a new ferret owner on this list years ago I remember
skipping over the sad parts and the "Oh my ferret is sick" parts
thinking I just want the fun stories -- why all these downers? Now I
am so grateful for all the sage advice from this forum. When Fox had
ECE a few months ago I knew exactly what to do and if I hadn't known
I would at least have known who to ask. Treating Fox's illness very
aggressively saved him a lot of pain and kept the ECE from taking its
devastating full toll. Fox went in for surgery two days after Ginger
and had his spleen and his left adrenal out. We have our fingers
crossed that we got it all.

Thanks to everyone on this list both listeners and writers. You are
making more of a difference than you know in the quality of life for
these little guys.

"If there are no ferrets in heaven, then when I die I want to go where
they went". Will Rogers sort of Patti Higgins Ginger I'm not a sissy
like some people about my meds

Fox Hey, I only need one pain dose -- you had two.

Hunter and Otter -- Mom made us babies get a lupron shot this spring
just in case that can keep us from getting adrenal cancer. At least we
got some ferretone out of that!

Freddie -- How come no one is talking about my toenail I hurt?

All the Ferrets at the Rainbow Bridge -- Butter just showed us his
gagging routine - he really is good,

[Posted in FML 5958]