Dear Ferret Friends,
 
After a sudden attack of severe seizures combined with extreme low blood
pressure on this past Saturday morning, I sadly had to send my spunky
ferret of 6+ years, Pogo, across the Rainbow Bridge.
 
Many of you met Pogo and knew he was everything a ferret should be...
bouncy, happy, no biting and all the poster boy for ferrets everywhere.  He
had been fighting with low glucose levels by taking Prednisone for over 9
months after I decided not to operate on possible tumors (he's a geriatric
Marshall ferret and I'm so poor it hurts--kudos to Dr. Gandolfi for
extending credit over the last couple of years).  For the last 6 weeks he's
been on Proglycin and Prednisone together.
 
The apparent sugar crash came sudden, and his blood pressure was so low he
could not be cathederized.  My only wish is that he could have left this
world among the staff of Castro Valley Companion Animal Hospital--Dr.
Gandolfi and all his staff have been superb.  But, being a Saturday, I had
to choose the nearest vet hospital.
 
Three-ish hours after admission, I made the tough decision to have him put
to sleep.  It was very hard--Pogo and Elmo are my first pets of my own.
But I coulnd not bear to thing he might go through this again if he
survived--the constant seizures and screaming (you know what that
means--Ferret in Pain).
 
Pogo is survived by his life-long cagemate and buddy Elmo (the other half
of my "bookends" who is currently on Pred. alone for a similar condition
as Pogos), Calvin the runt Scottish Fold, myself, and my girlfriend Diana
(who was very supportive in all this even though ferrets are not "her
critter of choice").
 
I just thought you folks deserved to know...
 
 :,(
 
Kevin Quosig
kevin at quosig dot com
 
Monday, August 9, 1999
6:39 PM PST
[Posted in FML issue 2768]