I apologize.  We've lost three uncles recently.  Isn't it just awful when
you've lost so many that you lose track and want to remember a lower
number...?  Oh, well, nothing we can do to change it; just have to get
through it and out the other side at some point.  Like Mother Jones said,
"Pray for the dead, but fight like hell for the living."
 
For anyone interested in the emergency we had: in the wee hours of Friday
Ashling (whose blood sugar had been fine on last testing) suddenly went
into a major reaction to a drop in blood glucose.  We were able to get
some sugar into her, warm her in a 105' bath (since her body temp had
fallen to 93.4'F (should be about 102, give or take a degree), and even
had to do gentle cheek puff mouth to nose and mouth artificial
respiration when her heart and breathing apparently gave out for a while
there, then off for emergency vet care... She made it and is under
treatment with more care on the way.  Ashling doesn't do things by
halves.  When she had bilateral adrenal neoplasia she was symptom free
till one week in which she dropped a very large portion of her body fur
completely -- from furred for greatly bald in one week -- and her
follicles have been glitchy ever since and not all of her fur ever regrew
due to destroyed follicles.  She is on Florinef and now till enough is
known for the best choices to be made (pre-surgical testing: CBC with
Chemistry Panel, heart imaging...) she is on a lot more Pred-- more than
she appreciates by a good deal, but that is life and just has to be lived
with.  Getting older isn't for sissies and she is 6 and 5/8 so she is
late in her middle age and about to enter early old age.  With humans
after 35 it is all maintenance and ferrets are similar, just in ferret
years and with their own suite of usual problems.  That's just life; at
least the love and friendship they and we build and nurture are more than
worth the worry and hurt -- and that also is just life.  In some ways
little late Chiclet helped save Ashling's life because we were so used to
some of the emergency actions for her that we just automatically did them
immediately for Ashling.
 
Oh, if you see my photo in the IFC program: Betty doctored it!  Silly
Betty!  I was hugging Steve (who was holding me in return with one
marvelous -- because it is his -- arm) and she went and changed it to
remove the best part!  So, "Blame Canada!". ;-) LOL!
 
>I'm sorry, Gary, that you have lost two kids; I too had a ferret die
>recently when she was put under for some routine surgery.  I had my
>vet do a necropsy and we discovered that she had advanced lymphoma and
>probably not have lived much longer anyway.  Did you have your vet
>necropsy them?
 
Oh, wow, Melanee!  Excellent point!  I need to knock some cobwebs out of
my head because that is just such an obvious thing but I sure didn't
think of it.  Hidden heart disease also has done that to some ferrets
under anesthesia, as could some other hidden medical problems.
 
A few ferrets are like humans, too, and react to anesthesia.  It is rare
but it can happen.
 
I think, though, that there also has recently been a lot of discussion
on the topic so a few cases seem like more due to the very nature of
focusing on a topic which brings in responses on something very rare.
That happened with the discussion of sepsis, too, and there were some
thinking a major problem was going on when really only a few ferrets
among many thousands over a number of months were involved and according
to Dr.Williams the rate is still the same as normal for sepsis
incidents -- they just weren't discussed much before.
 
BTW, there is one case: Yvonne's Clara who is doing much better by
surviving much longer (People are building upon what others learn now.)
and it sounds like she responded well to steroids in addition to
antibiotics so hats off to Yvonne who is advancing the knowledge for
us all.  I wish we'd known that for Chiclet who we still dearly miss,
but the care she and others got gave the foundation from which Yvonne
could advance things, and this is the nature of improving health care
sometimes -- with sharing winding up saving later ferrets.  It's just
important to recall that the rate may seem greater than it is because
of the focusing.
 
Gary wrote:
>People seem to forget that they work FOR *us* - *we* ARE the employers;
>they are the employees.
 
Actually, they work WITH us; we, too, have responsibilities: to do
up-keep, to learn beforehand so that problems can be spotted early enough
so that they have a shot or correcting them, to follow directions, to ask
about meds before giving them, to share other things we are doing with
them to prevent anyone inadvertently causing dangerous situations, etc.
For instance, before surgery anyone should check also on meds and
supplements given since some react badly with anesthesia, with cutting,
with post-op meds, with pain meds, etc.  It is by working TOGETHER that
ferrets are best helped.
 
Iso has been used for AT LEAST 10 years as the recommended anesthesia
for ferrets; very few respond poorly to it, but there is no 100% safe
approach for many things medical: whether standard meds or alternative --
each carries risks.  So, we just each try our best.
[Posted in FML issue 4292]