Right now, as I am typing this, my sweet lil four year old ferret, Dakota,
is at the emergency clinic.  He has to stay there overnight...
 
This morning at 11:00 he had a vet appointment to get his Distemper shot
(FERVAC).  I was a little bit worried about the possibility of him having a
reaction, even though he never had one before, I figured "its better to be
safe than sorry".  So i consulted the ferret shelter AND my vet (dr. cox)
AND the FML archives about premedicating him with benadryl.  So at 10:00,
an hour before his appointment, I gave him 0.5 ml of children's benadryl
(bubble gum flavor, if it makes any difference, I couldn't find
unflavored).
 
About 7 minutes after he got the shot, he started vomiting.  I was worried,
I tried being optimistic "maybe he had too many raisins".  After maybe 15
minutes (I'm not really sure, it felt like forever to me) Dr. Cox comes
back into the room with my Dakota wrapped up in a towel and tells me he IS
having a reaction to the shot and that he started having bloody diarhhea
(there was blood on the towel).  Of course, I burst into tears and she told
us to take him to the emergency vets (the vet's office closes at noon on
saturday).  So i put him in his carrying puoch (the kind that goes on your
chest, like ones they have for babies) during the ride there (don't worry,
i wasn't driving).  During the whole trip, he just lied there, which is
unusual for him, the only time he tried to get out of it was when he
started dry heaving.  He sneezed alot too.
 
When we got there, he started dry heaving again and the vets took him back
to check him out (take his temp, that sorta stuff).  She brought him back
along with a sample of his bloody dirreah to show me, I won't get
descriptive but it was AWFUL.  While she told us what she was going to do
and then took him back.  It bothered me that I didn't get a chance to talk
to him before they took him away... you know, what if i don't see him
again?  The vet told me to call at 4:00 to get an update on him, which I
did.
 
He wasn't doing any better, or any worse.  He was still throwing up and
having bloody diarrhea.  Then she called me at seven and said he is acting
more normal, fighting them a bit, only vomitted once since the last update,
but is still having the bloody diarrhea (she said it's gotten a little
better).  She said to call in the morning, so I'm gonna wake up at 6:00am
and call them, hopefully I can have my baby back tommorrow (sunday).  I
call the ferret shelter to tell the lady who runs the shelter that he had
a reaction, she gave me United Vaccines number and told me to call them &
report it, she also said I should ask them to pay the vet bills his
reaction has caused.  I'm going to wait til monday and have my vet call
United Vaccines.  Has anyone else tried getting U.V.  to pay the bill?
 
I apologize for the length of this post, I'm sorry if it's confusing.
 
thanks for taking your time to read  this! =20
- Annamarie and her =C6=92ab =C6=92our of =C6=92errets...
**Dakota, Autumn, Noel, and  Dweezil**
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
       My outlook is that little things are the trip. =20
             I'm very happy with very little. =20
          Maybe that is why I have so much.
                                                - Linda McCartney
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[Posted in FML issue 3037]