Dear ferret friends,

my dear sweet Draco was assisted to the bridge Saturday, March 5th with
the help of my vet. May 18th of last year, our family took Draco in as
a rescue from a friend of ours who rescued him, but was no longer able
to keep him due to health issues. She lived 3 hrs away, but she knew
we had 4 other ferrets, 2 of those being rescues, so she asked me if I
would be willing to take him. She told me about Draco's horrific past.
This poor sweet little guy had been through so much. She didn't know
the owner or owners (not knowing how many times he had been passed
around) who originally had him, but at some point he was taken to the
Humane Society where he was going to be put down. A family she knew
adopted him and kept him for about 6 mo. and then turned around and
gave him to a friend of theirs who had him for another 6 months. When
my friend went over there to visit this person and saw the horrible
condition he was in she was able to talk them into giving him to her.
She told me that these people had him in a small cage and he wasn't
able to use his hind legs and the poor little guy didn't even have a
name. When she took him in, she called him Linn ( Little No Name),so
sad, and her daughter called him Draco. My friend and her kids worked
with him for a year to try to rehabilitate him. When she told me of
Draco's horrific past, I discussed it with my husband and we both
decided to take him in. When I first saw him and looked into his
beautiful eyes, it was love at first sight. My daughter, my husband
and I all loved him so much. He was a DEW Semi-Angora with the most
beautiful eyes. When we put him down to walk and he saw how much room
he had to walk around, he just started walking and dooking. He still
had trouble walking with his hind legs on the tile floor, so I put lots
of fleece blankets on the floor for him to walk on to give him some
traction. My daughter and I gave him hydrotherapy exercise sessions in
the bathtub to strengthen his hind legs. He wasn't litter trained when
we got him and was a loner who wasn't accustomed to having other fuzzys
around, let alone to play with, or war dance. It was really sad when
we discovered that he didn't even know how to play with toys. Well, it
didn't take us long to litter train him and get him acquainted with his
new 3 brothers, Mario, Luigi, and Blacktail and his new sister Stormy.
Although when I introduced him to his new sister Stormy, he looked at
her and then looked back at me as if to say, " I think you got that
wrong Mom, she looks more like a girl friend to me." Which is exactly
what he thought of her. He was a lady's man and was quite smitten with
Stormy. I would quite often find them curled up together in bed forming
a heart shape or with Draco sleeping with his arm around her. He would
also sleep with the whole group in one big ferret pile. His brother
Mario taught him how to be a ferret. When we took him to our vet (Dr.
Cottrell) she estimated his age to be at least 6 to 7 yrs. old. Draco
had been valiantly battling Adrenal disease, Insulinoma, Heart Disease
with Pulmonary Edema and arthritis. He was not a candidate for Adrenal
surgery due to the heart disease and the Pulmonary Edema which was a
result of his heart condition. He was taking 0.2ml of Furosemide once a
day and 0.2ml of Prednisolone in the morning and 0.1ml of Prednisolone
in the evening. I had been hand feeding him the wonderful recipe Wolfy
had mentioned which I am so eternally grateful for. This helped to
nourish his body and gave me some extra time with my sweet baby.
Feb. 19th his breathing was very labored and we took him to the vet and
the x-rays revealed what appeared to be lots of fluid in his lungs, so
much that the vet was unable to even see his heart or his lungs on the
x-rays. When my husband and I went into the x-ray room to go over
the results with the vet, we were both in tears. His Furosemide was
increased to 0.2ml twice daily for 3 days then back to once daily to
maintain and the Prednisolone dose remained the same. Our vet said she
wanted him to pee like a race horse in order to get rid of the excess
fluid. So that was what we did along with hand feeding every 4-6hrs.,
and him drinking and having his soup available in between. Thursday
night(3/3) he took a turn for the worse again. I called our vet and she
said to increase his Furosemide to 0.2ml twice a day again. We had an
appt on Sat. to bring him in for a recheck. Friday he looked better
than the night before but still not up to par. I gave him his feedings
and his meds and my daughter and I took turns holding him. Draco was
used to us holding him and giving him lots of attention and he was very
affectionate with us in return. Saturday morning I fed him and gave him
his meds before his vet appt. After his exam our vet took more x-rays
and compared those with the recent ones he had on Feb. 19th. and when
she called us in the other room to go over the x-rays it was really
bad, much worse than we thought. Only one lung was functioning and
getting some air and the other was completely blocked with a huge
tumor. Our vet said she tried to draw fluid out of the other lung with
a needle, but it was a solid mass, one huge tumor and that there was
nothing that could be done. She showed us the narrow opening where
he was not getting much air and I started crying and my husband and
daughter were crying. My husband and I both have asthma and we know how
it feels and how scary it is to have an attack where your struggling
to get air. You feel like your drowning or like a fish out of water
gasping for air. We couldn't bear for him to suffer. She gave us time
in the other room with Draco. As I held him, we told him we knew that
he was very tired and very sick and that he had been such a strong
warrior. We told him how much we loved him and how much joy he brought
into our lives and that we were so blessed to have had him and that he
meant the world to us. I told him about the Rainbow Bridge and not to
be scared and that he would be healthy again, no tumors, no pain, all
the tone he wanted and be able to run and would get a set of wings so
that he could fly. ( Draco's favorite colors were red and green. He
always made a bee line for anything in those colors.) He would have
friends there, and would even grow all his fur back. I told him I
would ask the bridge greeter about getting a message to Super Tonks
and his friend Angel to see if they could come and also bring Bean,
Bear, Fannie Mae, Toast, Farrance, Thor along to greet Draco so he
won't be scared and alone.

Please watch over my baby and please tell him how much his momma, his
daddy, his skin sister and his brothers Mario, Luigi, and Blacktail and
his sweetheart Stormy love him and miss him and please let him know
how much joy he brought into our lives and that he took a piece of our
hearts with him when he left. Fly high my sweet handsome boy and war
dance till your heart's content. Your momma, your daddy and your skin
sister and Mario, Luigi, Blacktail and Stormy all miss you like crazy.

Cyndi Houmard

[Posted in FML 6995]