Well, boy, did i ever get A LOT of responses to my post about my kids' ear
mites and the $500 my Vet wanted to charge to use anesthetic and treat the
ferts. THANK YOU all VERY much. It is very touching to see how many of you
are willing to take the time and write to help out. :-) You guys are
absolutely terrific.
Here's an update...
After about 50 phone calls i discovered that there are no other clinics in
this area that treat ferrets, those places all recommended the place i went
to (and i'm telling you, you can't swing a lively weasel around here without
hitting a clinic, there is one on every corner). My Vet. back in Hamilton
was not available on the weekend, so even a drive back out there wouldn't
help. The only other place i could go to (Links Road Animal Hospital...where
i _will_ be going from now on...thanks to info. from a fellow FMLer) could
not see me until next week. I didn't really want to make the kids wait
another week and, at the time, i didn't know anything about that clinic
either (now i hear it is pretty darn good), so i decided to keep the
appointment at this Vet's.
That was this morning.
After reading all your posts i decided that there was no excuse for charging
me $500 or for saying my ferrets needed to be put under anesthetic, and i
went in and told the Vet. that (nicely). He (it was a different Vet. this
time) felt that the anesthetic was important so as not to hurt the ferts
while cleaning their ears, but i told him that i just was not willing to let
him do that. So, he went along with us. He said that Ivermectin (which
many, many, of you recommended) was not always successful and was a "lazy"
way of treating ear mites (???) and that the mites can live off the wax in
the ears and therefore not be killed by the ivermectin. Well, i don't agree
with his assessment of that, after listening to all of you, but there was no
changing his mind on that one. He wanted to use "Hexamite" which i figured
was okay if not the best thing.
So, he put some drops in the kids' ears to loosen up the wax. Then he
flushed their ears out (with a syringe with a little rubber tube on the
end). Then he put in a couple drops of "Hexamite". All the fuzzies were
_extremely_ good. I love my kids!!! He checked their ears again after the
flushing and said that they were really clean and that it worked well.
I think they are pretty afraid of ferrets there (as some of you suggested)
and just felt it would be "safer" for them to treat them if they were
unconscious at the time.
I have a bottle of Hexamite with me now and i am supposed to give the ferts
a couple of drops in each ear twice a week (does that sound like enough?)
for three weeks. He said that i don't need to worry about their bedding, but
i think i'll put it all in some hot wash anyway.
So, there you go.
tte Links Road Animal Hospital sounds like the better place (no kidding),
even though it is pretty far away, so i will be going there from now on.
I'll have to get in touch with them and find out where i should go in case
of an emergency though...but thats another story.
Again,
Thank you all for writing to me. I really appreciate all your help...i hate
to say no to something like that because i worry that they will think i just
don't want to spend the money on my kids, but the truth is...i'd spend
anything on them as long as i know it is the proper thing to do. I didn't
think that about anesthetic!!!
BTW...the grand total for today was $135. Still a helluva lot more than you
all said i should be paying, but there were 5 kids and at least it wasn't
$500!.
Bye For now.
--Norma-ann
President of the SOFA
and Mom to Molly (who the Vet said was "very, very, good"--my princess),
Leo and Maggie...Step-Mom to Oedie and Beckett.
P.S. I wish you all could have seen these fuzzies...they were just SO GOOD!
[Posted in FML issue 1713]
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