i've gotten a couple replies already since my post last might, thank
you vicki and lauren! (sorry if most of this is a repeat of what i
emailed ya'll!) ;)

so, earlier today i spoke with my old ferret-vet (since i'd moved too
far away to continue seeing him), just to get a second opinion and to
see if he had any ideas...he suggested holding off on surgery right
away due to phoebe's marked anemia and to try her on pediapred for a
week or so; that it could help give her a general 'boost' and perhaps
help her iron levels/help the lixotinic work better, and that it could
also possibly reduce the spleen size. he said splenic ruptures were
really pretty rare; that the spleen is a pretty solid organ and that
ruptures usually only occur in the case of cancer (in which case
there's nothing that could have been done) or injury or trauma. he was
pretty mystified by her labs; that they really don't point to anything
specific. he agrees she seems too old for juvenile cancer, but too
young for typical adult-ferret cancer, but again, she's an angora, and
they can just be kinda...different. as for the possibility of aplastic
anemia, he didn't rule that out as a possibility, that it could be, but
that that's darned-near as bad as cancer...not easy to come back from,
if at all. :( but until she's opened up, there's no way to tell if she
wasn't spayed. it seems silly to pay several hundred dollars for an
ultrasound, just to end up having to open her up anyway.

but i do i feel better not having the surgery so soon, really...i
wasn't terribly comfortable with it but understand where my current
vet was coming from; fearing a rupture, but it seems less likely that
it's that imminent...again, unless it's due to a malignancy. :(

so for now we're in a holding pattern; keeping her on all the meds, and
then we'll do another hematocrit in a week, maybe 2, and see how things
are looking.

thanks in advance for everyone's help, advice, and assistance (and
prayers and good wishes!) :)

~sherrie and the weezils

[Posted in FML 7352]