Dooks to everyone, and sincere condolences for babies lost.
 
Well, yesterday I think my heart stopped twice.  I was reading Ferret Aid
Society of Toronto's web page and for some strange reason went to the
section of the names of fuzzies gone to the bridge.  There was the name
"Harley Frame".  I quit breathing and dashed a note to Randy to make sure
nothing had happened to Harley.  Wow, is this gal good or what---I got a
really fast reply saying the Harley Bug was fine.  Whew.  Breathe in,
breathe out.
 
Okay.  Go home last night, fuzz butts all over us.  I pick up Kit, whose
just a little over a year old.  Now the other day I asked Larry "Do you
think the hair on her tail is thin?" and got "No, always like that."  Lemme
tell ya all.  Trust yourselves.  I look at her last night and half her tail
hair is gone!  I gave out this strangled "LOOK AT HER TAIL" and his eyes
flew open.  She was acting normal, playing, dooking, trying to climb up and
pull my sweats off me, looking at me like I'm crazy for grabbing her tail,
typical fuzzy terrorist.
 
Well, little sleep last night.  My vet opens at 7:00 am, and is open
Saturday's till noon.  So I was on the phone by 6:55 this morning, and he
said get her in earlier the better.  So upstairs I go, wade through the
merry mayhem, find Kit knocking the snot out of Scully on the bed, grab the
carrier, grab Kit, put Kit down, pull Genie and Scully out of carrier, put
Kit it and close door, pull Genie & Scully off the top of the carrier, turn
and go through the rest of the mayhem with Suzy doing the world's greatest
blocker routine down the hall, get my shoes on and go to the vets.  Of
course Kit is letting me know in no uncertain terms she doesn't like this
carrier.  She doesn't say a word, but the digging and door grabbing tell
it all.
 
We get to Dr. Kubisz and get right in, out of the carrier and onto the
scales.  My 'little girl' weighs two pounds (more than I thought) and of
course she isn't going to hold still for squat.  Dr. K gets his gloves on
and picks her up and examines her.  Says the adrenals are fine, no swelling
anywhere.  Says it looks like a fungus!  He told me multiple ferrets will
have this problem.  So he sends his son for a culture and I hear "Hey, you
little devil" and she's got a death grip on his rubber glove.  So, I pry
her off his finger, his son comes in and we do the culture.  This will take
two weeks to know what kind of fungus.  Meantime, he asks how often I bathe
them.  I told him since they normally hate to be bathed, not very often.
But now I have an anti-fungal shampoo I have to bathe them with once a week
and a spray 2x a week.
 
So home we go and it's bathing time for ferrets.  My hands look like I
tried to knife myself, and my kid thinks watching me bathe them was
hilarious.  She helped me spray them, I sprayed everything and right now
the little buggers are sound asleep, no itching.  He said the cats might
get it and they will have to be sprayed possibly bathed.  That's when I
told him I'd want to tranquilize the cats to bathe them.  Saw somebody
bathe a cat onetime that wasn't used to it and this person carried scars
to the end of his days.  My cats don't get bathed, and I scar terribly!
 
So, after learning it was a fungus not adrenal or anything more serious, my
heart rate has returned to normal and I can breathe again.
 
Every body hug your babies!
 
Rebecca (the clawed one) and the other two human slaves
The band of merry mayhem:
the 8 fuzzies who rule
the four cats who think they're free of ferret control but the fuzzies are
gaining!
 
=======================
Rebecca McFarlane
Secretary
Basic Medical Sciences
School Veterinary Medicine
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN  47907-1246
Phone:   765-494-8632
Fax:     765-494-0781
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste
 good with ketchup"
[Posted in FML issue 2773]