My step-mom is back in the hospital, in an emergency room holding room,
waiting for an ICU bed to open.  It appears that she has had a severe
reaction to at least one of her medications, so now they have to reduce that
reaction while trying to work up another way of treating her to keep her
blood pressure low enough that the aorta will not open up again.  I can't
give an update because we are in N.J. and they were wintering in Florida
through all this, and the extension at the hospital didn't get picked up the
times I tried.  All anyone can do now is nervously wait.
 
To get my mind off it I'll answer questions.  No, we don't have a Fuelrod
(Cute name!), but we keep lists in a baby name book of possible future names
for ferrets and have ones with a similar feel to them such as Weedwhacker,
Zap, Whizbang, Jig, Vortex, Pandemonium, Vivace, Ripcord, Dervish, Kilowatt,
and Mercury, as well as others like: Malarky, Volstagg, Flurry, Kalinka (the
snowball flower), Pivot, Scrumble, Ruttle, Meshuga, Snorkle, Mucker, and
Sandhog.
 
Meltdown's name is perfect for her, even though it did not arise as one
marvelous FML member so kindly put it "because she melts everyone's heart",
though it could have.  She came from Path Valley and so grew up very near
Three Mile Island.  When we brought her home at the tender age of 5 weeks
(spaying incision had just had the stitches out) we stopped off for a quick
bite which turned out to be a cheeseburger in my case and Meltie got so
excited that she kept stealing tiny pieces of it and exclaiming, "Yip yup,
yip, yup!" For whatever reason she has never eaten one since, nor has she
said that again, but we can often get her to eat something by saying that to
her.  Guess it translates to the chimp "Hunh, hunh, hunh" good food noise.
She has also always had more energy than would be expected, even now with
her advanced cardiomyopathy and her 8 and 1/2 birthday coming up on Friday
if she continues to do well.  If you or anyone else wants to use the name
"Meltdown" at some point, feel free to do so.  It helped us to have another
Ruffle here when she was passing away.  (Today, BTW, would have been
Ruffle's 7th birthday.) If you want to see Meltdown and a few of our other
ferrets past and present Steve has a web site with some pictures at
http://skunk.research.att.com Don't worry about Meltie's tail being bald.
She had a malignancy in one adrenal years ago.  (Unlike her's most adrenals
are benign but still should be corrected; in her case it was fortunate that
Hanan operated quickly because her's was nicely encapsulated so it came out
before it had a chance to spread.) Her fur just never came back.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 1890]