After many months of lurking i find it awful that one of my first posts
must be about sickness.  I have 6 very wonderful fuzzballs 5 around 3 yrs
of age and 1 who is about 9 mths.  All are wonderful babies and have rarely
been ill, I have one baby boy who reacts badly to shots and my new baby
gave all my oldsters the green ick, but until now this has all been rather
minor, but now I need your help with one of my oldest.  Barely 3 years of
age and one of my 2 original fuzzies that i have had since they were
babies, my ferret TJ (a beautiful sable) has developed lymphosarcoma.  I
need advice about treatment options (i have searched old issue, but would
like some current info) and would like to hear from people who have been
through this before.  For those of you who wish to read on, i will tell the
story of his illness so far.
 
4 weeks ago I noticed a lump on TJ's tail and had also noticed about a
pound in weight loss over the last 3-4 mths (but he was rather fat to start
with) took him to the vet.  She aspirated the lumps but could find no
answers so we scheduled a biopsy.  The biopsy results showed a bacterial
muscle infection (very strange i thought).  We decided to start him on a
course of Baytril.  A few days later I felt a lump in his abdomen, back to
the vet and a round of barium.  The abdominal lump disappered, but the
barium showed 2 objects in his tummy (naughty ferret), so on to emergency
surgery to remove the objects.  Vet calls me during surgery, 3 of his 5
liver lobes are involved in tumor growth, i need to make an immediate
decision, cant remove all the lobes but can take one.  So I say take a lobe
out.  Surgery goes well and TJ comes home to recover.  Recovery is going
very well and TJ hates his confinment and misses his friends.  Lab results
came back Friday, Lymphosarcoma, my vet advises against chemo, but would
like to do prednisone.  We will discuss treatment further with vet on Wed
when we go to have stiches removed - I like to have good info before then
to discuss with her so please respond if you can help TJ.
 
[log in to unmask]
Thank you so much.
Prayers for all the other little sick fuzzies - God bless yall.
 
Holly&Sam
 
Rascal (my first baby), TJ ( my second baby), Neko (japanese for cat if
the spellings right), Snowball (who is chocolate, not white, my hubbys
idea), and Baby (who is white)
also Abby the cat who plays with Baby, who thinks he is a cat.
[Posted in FML issue 2608]