We lost the baby of our business this morning. Friday night we noticed
that he was acting sluggish and though he had a cold coming on. We
brought him into our room to sleep with us so we could keep a closer
eye on him. I was up most of the nightwith him and I he was stumbling
a lot and not moving much. We took him to the vet first thing in the
morning, and they took him in for tests. Our first suspect was
insulinoma, but all of his tests came back normal except a low white
blood cell count. This morning we got a call asking us to come down to
the vet's office. Lennon was experiencing paralysis from the neck down.
The vet said that they had never seen anything like it before, and
felt that there was nothing else that could be done for him. I held
my little guy while the vet put him to sleep.

All our ferrets are rescues, and most have come to live with us as
adults. Lennon, however we rescued when he was still a baby so we had
raised him ourselves. He would follow us all around the house and
always had to know what everyone was up to. His face was always pressed
up against the baby gate whenever we would come into the house. The
worst part is the other ferrets have spent most of today looking for
him. They keep nosing around in all his special hiding places. We are
keeping a close eye on all of them to make sure none of them get
depressed and keeping our fingers crossed that whatever caused the
sudden paralysis in Lennon isn't contagious and does not spread to
the others.

We will miss our little guy so much. He joins so many other loved pets
across the rainbow bridge. May they all dook with happiness.

Jessica Branch
"Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally
come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to
be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask
yourself... 'How did I get through all of that?"

[Posted in FML 7928]