Hi Everyone!
I posted a while back regarding Dumpy my foster ferret that i adopted the
other day, officially now a Hansen ferret!:) i described the symptoms he
was showing (draging of hind legs, and stopped eating) i have been syringe
feeding him Duck Soup for a month, and he has put on a whole lot of weight,
from 1 pound to now 3!!  i had seen and felt that his lymph nodes on his
neck were big, but he was bumpy and bony all over when i started fostering
him, i had a vet look at him the same day i signed his adoption papers, i
had a gut feeling those swollen nodes were bad knews, and i pretty much
got it confirmed by the vet, he shows all the signs of Lymphosarcoma, we
haven't done any tests, like blood work or extracted any sample from the
lymph nodes, because i was told that the chances of getting an accurate
result were slim, bloodwork on a ferret is pretty inconclusive, and to draw
from the node itself and hit the tumor was hard because it mostly consists
of fat, so i opted not to do it.
 
it also seems that his spleen is enlarged, my guess and my vets is that it
seems to be due to lymphosarcoma, he is on Clavamox and has since before
that been on Prednisone, He doesn't really eat on his own, i have to wake
him and place him in front of his Duck Soup (wev'e made progress:)for him
to start licking in the air for a while before lowering his head to the
bowl.  He sleeps alot, but is also active for about half an hour when out
of the cage, he is just adorable, and seems otherwise happy, he takes off
exporing and constantly comes back to me and attempts a war dance, i just
love this little guy, he is so brave and sweet!  then he goes to his tent
his shelter mom gave him and cuddles the blankies....his lymph nodes seem
to have gotten smaller since we started the Clavamox?  (wishfull thinking?)
 
The question i have is, when he seems to be showing all these signs of
Lymphosarcoma, how long does he have left in him?  is it going to benefit
him to have the spleen taken out, how much time will it buy him if the
sarcoma is eventually going to take out his other organs, like the liver,
lungs etc.  What are his prognoses if we take his spleen out?  his shelter
mom guessed he was around four years old, but he could be more like five.
What good will chemotherapy do?  is it worth it?  i don't want to put him
through a lot of pain and suffering, i want whatever time he has to be
happy, and painless, even if it means it will be shorter.  death comes to
us all, i don't want to put him through a lot of pain and discomfort, when
the outcome is going to irreversible be death, and to be honest i don't
have the money to even take the spleen out, (i'm looking at about $350-400
assuming there are no complications) i feel terrible of even mencioning
money, but i have to, it is very hard to watch my sick little guy that i
just adopted, and think i may not even be able to do much, but it is also
hard to know there are things my family need that we can't afford, and
somehow ask of them to understand how much i love this little guy, and what
it means to me to save him.  we are foreigners in this country and don't
even have an insurance in the event one of us really gets sick, and here i
am looking for ways to pay the vet bills for my sweet Dumpy.  i feel that
maybee i should never have adopted him, but i didn't know.  i love him so
much and i know he loves me.  It seems that Lucky who i also adopted may
need surgery as well, she had a swollen vulva and we opted to start
treating her with a hormone shot every ten days to get the swelling down,
it did get the swelling down a great deal, but she has over the past month
lost weight, and sleeps a lot more.  she weighed 1.  88 and was this
morning 1.16, i am concerned that she is becomming lethargic, and that
there is an incomplete spay that has caused her to go in to heat, the
reason we started out with the hormone treatment, was that it sometimes is
hard to find the small pieces left in them to be removed, and again i opted
to try this first rather than open her up.
 
it probably sounds like i am a terrible ferret mom, but i really love my
babies, if anyone has some advice as of what to do i would really
appreciate it.  i feel like i am opening myself up for a whole lot of
flame, but i just don't know what else to do.  i need to find solutions
that are not going to bankrupt me.
 
Sincerely
Josephine
[Posted in FML issue 2579]