We've been on teh FML for awhile but have never needed medical advice up
till now. On Firday our ferret Chester got very sick and thanks to the kind
soul who posted about Dr. McClugge and Allpets we were finally able to find
a vet who knows about ferrets (after a really horrible one, but that'sa
different story). Thanks also for the FAQ's-they helped immensly. What we
need now is advice, suggestions, other's experiences.
 
Chester started on Friday with lethargy and acted drugged. By Saturday night
he was trying to vomit. We took him to an emergency clinic-bad idea- we
found Dr. McCluggage on Sunday am- he thinks it may be insulinoma-his blodd
glucose was 80 and we had been giving him some sugar water since the night
before. He's home now and we're giving him Karo syrup four times a day to
see if he will improve over the next couple of days-we were told if he did
then it's a tumor. However he has not eaten since Saturday morning-we've
tried baby food  (yuck) and softened food-no luck. He drinks a little water
when we wake him to give him the syrup. However he is still
defecating-despite no food. It is balck and tarry but is getting looser, a
witha green tinge and I could swear that last time it smelled like soap. (?)
 
A couple of questions:
    1) Should we start giving him softened food through the syringe? Or
should we just trust him to regulate it himslef?
    2) If anyone has been through this, we'd like to know what your
experiences were with surgery versus no suregery and using glucose only.
We're concerned that if he does surgery, is the risks or surgery or his
potential life span going to outweigh giving him a comforatble, quality life
until he dies? I'm not sure if this makes sense but we want to makea
decision that's best for him, not us and we want inpuut from others who have
been through it. Also if anyone has used alternative methods (acunpuncture
etc.) did they work?
    3) We want to give him Duck soup at some point-what's Suscatel? Where do
we get it?
    Also we don't know if theis is part of it, but jsut to add to the info
for Dr. Williams-he is from Marshall Farms, is a very small male and is 3
years old. Also we emailed you over the weekend-the first address was
returned and we never got anything back from the otehr-we don't know if the
problems are on our end or yours, but thought you might want to know.
    Thanks again-
Carin, Randall and the true head of household, Chester
[Posted in FML issue 1201]