Michael,
 
Once allergic, always allergic.  Your ferret may even be allergic to
something in a general medium found in some other vaccines (rare, but
something to be aware of) so DO always stay a good while after others to be
safe.  When the reaction is REALLY bad (i.e. life threatening) it pays to
try another workable vaccine or skip that particular type of vaccination.
 
An individual needs to have previous exposure to something to become
allergic.  It does not have to be the active compound itself, btw.  People
allergic to some types of starches have to be careful what pill they take
because some are cut with the wrong ones for them and can be dangerous.  An
allergist once told me that severe food allergies usually happen with the
MOST common foods a person eats. Lots of previous exposure there.
 
Okay, below concept (i.e. punch line) is NOT mine, though I rewrote it to be
ferret applicable, so the wording is mine.  (Steve heard it from Bill
Staines at the Minstrel Show and that man IS smart enough to be the origin!
Oh, can he ever word stuff and sing -- but then, he's famous for that so you
knew it already.  Wonder if it would be in my budget to commission him to
write a ferret folk song for Steve?  Doubt it, but I could ask...):
 
Filch the ferret found that tiny bulge in the screen door and he worried it
and shoved and finagled it all up till it was just large enough.  Ahhhhhhhh!
Freedom: Blue sky so metalically bright you could bounce a ball off it,
clouds so white and just fluffing their way on the lips of a breeze... This
was living.  Dirt to dig, rose thorns to scratch backhide with, butterflies
to chase, and katydids just offering up their yummy land-lobster bellies.
 
Then Filch was caught up short -- heck, little guy just about stopped
breathing right then and there -- as the dark of shadow chilled along the
grass.  Lucky he did see it, too, 'cause as he looked up and up he found
more and more to scare his little tail to bottle-brushing.  A California
Fish and Game Warden!
 
Well, Filch ran here, and Filch ran there, and Filch ran just almost every
bit of everywhere but that warden just kept coming, till Filch ran into a
big ol' cave.  Well, that warden stopped up short and grimaced awfully bad
and left to whining on back toward the office, but Filch kept those little
legs pumping and his little heart racing and he dang near broke the 2 minute
mile, I can tell you.  Finally his tired, tiny haunches would go no further
and he stopped before a grand.  palaceal openning.  And then, when his
breathing had slowed just enough for him to be able to hear again he heard...
fluttering ... high above.  And once again Filch looked, up and up and up,
and up yet again, and there in the glimmering bowl he saw them.  Bats!
 
"Angels!" exclaimed Filch!
 
Now I ask you, are things in this world always what they seem?
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2074]