Thursday:

Hello FMLers --

The phone company has been repairing a bad cable that serves our
neighborhood. Tonight we have an open phone line!

Rico is fine -- made a great recovery and is fat and furry. Jonas is a
happy guy. Just a couple of hours ago they came into this room and were
hopping around and wrestling. But now I need some help with Lucy.

Btw, we went to the main vet school, which is in Debre Zeit a great
town 1.5 hrs away fr Addis, but they were closed for a holiday I hadn't
taken notice of. We'll be going back soon. In fact, we are looking into
moving there. It seems like a great place.

But back to Lucy for now. Abt a month (?) ago, she got sick. Lost major
weight. Green mucous-coated stools, yellow diarrhea, etc. She got past
that via sulfa and Amoxy (mostly Amoxy), and has had fine stools for a
couple od weeks now. But she never regained her strength or her weight.
She got better for a while, and then went downhill again. She is now
getting close to skin and bones.

She is very often dehydrated (neck-skin test), and that really puzzles
me. It happens even when we give her subQ liquid every few hours. She
is so small that I can't get much in, but still, why would she dry out
like that?

Today we started urging her to drink as well as eat each hour. She
usually does drink then anyway, but we are trying to increase her
intake. Before that, it seemed as though she were drinking enough,
but maybe we weren't being observant enough.

But anyway, is dehydration w normal stools a sign of any illnesses?

Lucy totters rapidly around a lot of the time, including up and down
long ramps when she's at her best, but sometimes she pretty much
collapses and lies limp, and remains limp when we pick her up, w her
eyes half shut.

For 2-3 weeks we have been feeding her by finger several times a day
and giving her subQ dextrose, then glucose (no more dextrose at the
pharmacy), and now back to dextrose (5%). It seems to work best if we
give it to her every few hours.

Also, when she collapses, an infusion seems to bring her out of it, but
maybe it's really being handled and aggravated by the injection. Poor
creature has lots of holes some days fr all the injections. The whole
thing is horrible. After all the years with healthy ferrets this is
shocking.

A couple of weeks ago we did two blood-sugar tests on Lucy, and they
came out w/in normal range. On the other hand, of course the tester is
not made for ferrets. I assumed it was for cats and dogs, but now that
I think of it it might more likely be for people -- there is so little
here for animals in the way of diagnostic stuff.

The only book I have at this point is Fox -- the rest are still hung up
in Customs. Looking at Fox, her symptoms sound like insulomina other
than the blood glucose level???

So my questions --

What ideas do you have abt might be wrong with her? What shall we try?

Are there bad effects from longterm admin of glucose/dextrose?

And speaking of subQ injections, what places on her neck and back are
good to use and what not?

Is it bad to let her drink that liquid? She loves it, but is that type
of sugar bad to drink though ok subQ?

Any other tests we could do that don't require much in the way of
equipt or lab kits? Like I said, we'll be going back to the vet college
and will see if they're willing to try the xray machine and/or
ultrasound on her.

Apparently they are the only machines like that in the country and I'm
told "nobody uses them." Can they go out of calibration w/o regular
use? Can a tiny ferret be damaged by misadministratn of either? I'm
assuming xray at least could. I hope the people at the college are
sharp, but want your opinion in case not.

Friday:

For abt 24 hrs Lucy has collapsed just after we pull the subQ needle
out -- and since we are holding her during the infusion, it might
really be happening while she is getting the dose.

If I put a little cod liver oil in front of her she immediately lifts
her head enough to start licking, and in a moment she perks up more
and licks it all up.

They all love that stuff, and we give it to them instead of
ferretone -- haven't found another fish oil here.

Last night I found out that their food has been missing the extra fat
that's supposed to go into "chicken gravy" -- which is what their food
is, though not so watery. The extra fat is really an important
ingredient in the mix since Ethiopian chickens are generally pretty
scrawny.

That lack doesn't seem to have affected Rico or Jonas, but do you think
it could be a serious factor in Lucy's case? It might be a week or two
that it's been missing in their diet.

Also this AM, Lucy found the puppy-food kibble and ate it like she was
starving -- which actually she has been, the way she's losing weight.
We'd just been finger-feeding her the chicken stuff but she didn't
want to eat much of it, and I was thinking we might need to switch to
syringe feeding. Just seeing her eat enthusiastically was great.

Do you think puppy food gives enough nutrition to be ok for her to eat
as half of her food? This is not a high-end brand -- usually only
Purina is available here, and that intermittently.

I have sent for Pingford's Porridge (YES! I agree, a GREAT SALE IS
ON!), but meanwhile .....

[Posted in FML 5987]