All I can say about this weekend is that it has been interesting.  We had
two ferrets go to the vet, one of them twice and the other one to the
emergency hospital on Valentine's evening.  The first one has insulinoma,
and my husband is just heart-broken, because she is his special baby.
Daffnie is a beautiful dark silver mitt and he picked her out when she was
just a baby.  Her fasting blood glucose level was 50!  So we have her on
prednisone, nutracal, A/D until we can get her back on solid food (we hope)
and a low dose of amoxicillin for ten days.  None of our friends understand
why we are spending all this money, time and effort on our animals, so it's
nice to know that all the fuzzy lovers on the ferret lists understand.
 
Our second trip to the vet emergency hospital was for my little girl,
Cognac, a ten month old cinnamon ferret.  She is still being introduced to
the other eight ferrets, and the boys, especially, still pick on her.  So
Friday night we had them all down in the kitchen, which is the only ferret
proofed room in our 70+ year old house, and she was attacked by two of the
males in short succession.  They had grabbed her by the back of the neck and
were shaking her hard.  Well, she got rescued by the humans, and got to sit
in the living room with us.  For a while I thought she had hiccups, then she
was asleep and I thought she was dreaming, but she was having seizures!  We
took her to the vet about midnight when they got worse.  Fortunately, they
gave her some sub-cutaneous fluids and some steroids to reduce the swelling
of the brain and she was better.  She didn't get back to her normal bouncy
self until Saturday evening though - I had to hand feed her and force water
down her.  We are so lucky to live in a big city that has 24 hour emergency
vet hospitals.
 
Thank you all for listening to me vent - I needed the relief.  Any advice on
long term prospects of a ferret living with insulinoma, you can e-mail us
directly.
 
Sara and Kurt Petersen
Daffnie (I don't feel good, Dad)
Cognac (Why are they beating up on me, Mom?)
Jodeci (Surgery?  what surgery?
Spice (I'm going to beat up on the dog)
Danyel, Skotter, Buddie, Preen, and Fog
[Posted in FML issue 1847]