Well, 3 and 1/2 year old Ashling who has the first early adrenal we've run
into turned out to have both up and enlarged lymph nodes inside, so the
adrenals are both out cleanly, as are some nodes and a sliver of liver --
all going to be biopsied.  Hope it's not lympho.  Haven't had that here in
a long time now.  Hate that disease, and hate the way that more than one
ferret tends to have it sequentially.  Wish the studies to try to find a
suspected contributing silent virus trigger had been successful, but that's
a very hard type of thing to try to find.  Decades of study aren't unusual
finding them in human health problems and those have much better funding.
 
Ashling will be a Fluorinef girl now.  We know what that is like.  May
have had the first one taking Fluorinef.  Many years ago Hjalmar had a
suppressed adrenal and when the diseased one came out he crashed very
badly.  We were kindly advised to come in and pick him up to come home
and die with us.  While there asked if there might be anything last-ditch
to try and a vet who's not a ferret vet (Dr. Hollo) said that if it was
such-and-such an animal (can't recall what) he'd try Fluorinef as a last
ditch effort just in case it might work.  It was a long shot.  Practically
flew to the pharmacy where Steve had to argue (which he NEVER does) with
the pharmacist who wanted to wait till the next day when Hjalmie had hours
at best.  Got it, got it in, and Hjalmar turned around very rapidly.  Then
later a vet in Colorado did a lot of work with it and found it to be a very
good med for them.  have absolutely no idea if he came up with the idea of
using it on his own or read about Hjalmer; either is possible.  Since then
there have been (and still are) some ferrets here on it long-term.  Guess
Ashling has a lot of folks to thank and maybe an earlier ferret of our's
to thank.
 
If it is lympho then we'll likely try chemo, given our past performance.
She's in the prime of life and at an ideal age to get through it well for a
long-term result.  Still a long-shot, but it's the time when it's the best
shot possible: same age as Katie Fritz's Bandit who lived to 8 years after
having the Jeglum protocol years ago.  Got to try what you've got to try,
and I suspect that chemo may have advanced since then because I know there
are now some age-related variations in approaches.
 
Have NOT told Steve, yet, about the possibility that it there is more going
on than the adrenals, though have told him about the tissue biopsies and
what was pulled.  He has a very, very hard time waiting with worry.
 
Ashling is gray girl with mitt markings that have modifications so
something else is in there besides mitt; they are NOT cleanly mitts.
She's PV.
[Posted in FML issue 3134]