Hey again everyone.

I emailed last week about Loki passing away, just over two months
after we found out he had lymphoma. Loki would have been 4 years old
on Halloween.

I'm having such a hard time with his passing. Not just because I loved
the sweet little guy so much. But because it wasn't supposed to happen
this way. And if we'd been paying attention, maybe it wouldn't have
happened this way.

We were going with Cytoxan injections every three weeks, plus
prednisolone twice daily. At first Loki had several noticeable tumors,
but they shrank rapidly after his first treatment. Loki was sick for
several days after, weak and lethargic, with fever for several days.
After that though he was like a new ferret for a couple of weeks (some
unrelated issues aside). He was running and playing with the others
again as he had not done in months. We thought the illness was because
he had some large tumours that were being rapidly dissolved and hoped
the second treatment would go better. By then he had one sizeable tumor
in his groin again. But he became even sicker. His fever wasn't as bad
but he gradually became much weaker, lost all appetite. I brought him
to the vet but he didn't seem to think he was in immediate danger. But
he died early the next morning.

My vet did an autopsy and he didn't find much. Cancer of course, but
no signs that it was particularly widespread yet. He had mentioned the
evening before though that Loki was anemic. When he said it I noticed
how pale Loki had become. He had also been breathing rapidly for a few
days and I didn't know till after he passed that this was another
symptom of anemia. I'd noticed the rapid breathing as well after his
first chemo treatment.

I now fear that Loki died simply of severe anemia and that it was
probably caused by the chemo, and seemed to be a temporary effect that
Loki seemed to recover from a week or so after a treatment. I didn't
make the connection when my vet mentioned he was anemic that this by
itself could be life threatening, and my vet didn't say so. I'm afraid
if we had done something as simple as a blood transfusion, that Loki
might have pulled through his current crisis and recovered, just as he
did on his own after his first chemo treatment. My brother-in-law went
through lymphoma years ago and recently told me that the chemo made
him anemic, and that he was given a drug to boost red blood cell
production. Maybe something like that would have been possible as well
for Loki. If anemia was a possible and potentially deadly side effect,
why weren't we watching for it, and why didn't we try to treat it when
it happened?

It's maddening to think we might have failed to save Loki because we
overlooked something so simple. It's true, we were having trouble
balancing the chemo against the illness, and the benefits against the
side effects. Maybe the cancer was more aggressive than usual with
Loki. Maybe the chemo was harder on him than most. Maybe, even if a
transfusion had saved him, it would have only bought him a few weeks,
until the next chemo treatment. But in those few weeks he would have
reached his 4th birthday. He would have been at a ferret party I'm
hosting in a week, one last chance for my friends to see him happy
and playing, one more chance for photos and videos that I'll now never
get a chance to take.

I just never expected him to miss those last milestones like this, it
just seemed so unlikely that he wouldn't be around that little while
longer, when he'd been doing so well so recently. When he went in for
his last chemo he was so full of life and energy. This is so unexpected
and wrong and not the way it was supposed to happen! I know that's just
how it goes sometimes, but it's still hard to accept it. And it seems
like I have to learn it all over again every time it happens. I never
see it coming till it's too late. It seems every time I have a sick
ferret who I hope will just make it to their next birthday, they don't.
This has happened to me at least five times now, although never just
two weeks from their birthday.

We still have to wait for test results on tissue samples from the
autopsy; maybe they will tell us something, maybe not. I just feel sad
and angry and sick about all of this. My mind is going in circles, it
wants to find an answer, a solution. But it's too late.

--
John, Caregiver to Kody and Abby
With loving memories of Buddy, Cassie, Sammy,
Buster, Pandora, Tommy, Jasper and Loki

[Posted in FML 7587]