Louie is a 3 year old sable that we love dearly.  He has been a healthy and
active little guy but during the Christmas holidays he became lethargic and
stopped eating.  We were very concerned and took him to the Vet (a ferret
"specialist") who has given him his yearly shots and exams.  This Vet had
just seen him a week ago, given him an exam and his shot and pronounced him
healthy.  After 2 days of blood tests and exams she now told us that he was
wasting away and her diagnosis was insulinoma and exploratory surgery was
needed.  We were told that we might lose him.  She said she would do the
surgery if we wanted or we could take him elsewhere.  We were heartbroken!
 
We decided to take him to the Midwest Bird & Exotic Animal Hospital located
in Westchester Illinois.  They did a blood workup and an x-ray and they
found that he had 2 large hairballs in his stomach, one of them blocking the
path to his intestines.  This was the reason that he couldn't eat!  The next
day they did the surgery (not finding any sign of insulinoma) and he is now
home (staples and all).  He has resumed eating and is getting back to being
his old self.
 
I am not accusing the first Vet of any sort of wrongdoing.  They admitted
that even though they cared for ferrets, they did not have the same kind of
sophisticated diagnostic tools that other Vets had.  Midwest Exotic had that
equipment and acted quickly to keep Louie from wasting away any further (he
had lost 15% of his body weight in a week)!
 
We always knew that ferrets needed specialized care but it was amazing to us
the differences between Vets that said they "specialized" in ferrets.  I
hope that none of you ever have to go through what we did but, if you do, I
hope you have access to the kind of care that Midwest Exotic gave our little
guy.
[Posted in FML issue 1813]