With lymphoma it is more likely for the lumps to be hard or to later
become hard, so watch for that.  The BEST thing to do is to have one
removed for biopsy by a ferret knowledgeable veterinary pathologist.
With an aspirate there is always the risk of missing a critical area so a
negative might not be accurate, but an aspirate could be tried first in
case it comes up positive or to get a feeling about contents if the vet
considers it suspicious.
 
Fatty deposits can occur due to multiple reasons like obesity, fat
re-distribution with advanced age, or adrenal growths.
 
Systemic infection will blow up nodes, so even when they are hard that
possibility needs to be checked.
 
There was an interesting past hypothesis that blood tests could be
diagnostic for lymphoma --- which did NOT pan out -- and it was from
about as knowledgeable a source as possible: a noted ferret vet expert
veterinarian.  Even hypotheses from exceedingly knowledgeable sources
don't always pan out, so if someone mentions it to you -- it does not
work as per the study results and announcement of the same vet who came
up with the hypothesis in the first place.  The confusion occurred
because with this particular case not only did ferret people confuse
a hypothesis with a known thing, but so did some vets.
 
Re: sugar and insulinoma:
 
One past hypothesis was to limit or eliminate simple sugars in the diet
during insulinoma due to the possibility of the blood glucose levels
yo-yoing.  It is not known if that hypothesis may hold for early
insulinoma or middle level insulinoma -- and to be honest we DO still
use that precaution in our home with those levels, just in case.  What
IS known now is that advanced insulinoma the normal tissue is largely
replaced or suppressed by the insulinoma tumors, and insulinoma tumors
are not responsive to blood glucose levels.  As a result, a person can
actually add both quality and quantity of time by giving sweets during
the advanced stage of the illness as part of the treatment routine.  In
fact, once the ferret no longer tolerates further increases to the Pred
dose and the Diazoxide is at max dose, giving sugar in addition to the
meds can really help; it gave our Warpie several months more of good time
and it wasn't even her advanced insulinoma that took her in the end, but
her lympho, instead.
 
Sevie who has Level 3 A/V heart node block appears to be developing the
start of abdominal ascites.  That's a bad sign and a call is in to her
vet, so likely we'll be doing yet one more experimental thing with this
little girl who, despite not being a pacemaker candidate, has lived
almost four excellent and happy, pain-free months since her heart would
normally have killed her due to the lack of communication and rhythm
between her heart chambers.  I expect we'll start diuretics for her next,
with all the usual diuretic precautions.  Sometimes you just have to try
what you just have to try.
[Posted in FML issue 3938]