I took the ferret seized in the animal raid to the vet yesterday.  Dr.
Turner is amazed at the variety of unusual tumors local ferret shelters
have been bringing him lately.  (We had Chester with the benign fibrous
tumor a couple months ago.  Then Jean Caputo Lee of Ferrets Unlimited
brought her ferret Bandit with a similar tumor, but more fat cells, and
Hedi, a shelter ferret with 3 different types of tumors, 2 of them rare
in ferrets.)
 
Anyway, he took a couple xrays and gave the tentative diagnosis of
osteosarcoma, basically a tumor comprised largely of bones cells.  There
was no distinct demarkation between skull and tumor, making surgery
difficult.  Prognosis depends on the history of the tumor--if it's been
growing slowly for a long time, it will probably continue to do so without
causing problems.  If it appeared in the last couple months, it is growing
quickly and prognosis is bad.  I am going to assume the former.  Other than
the general lack of muscle tone, etc, no other major problems were found.
 
I would like to thank everyone who sent me suggestions for names for him.
I have selected "Cadbury", since he is a sweet chocolate boy with a goose
egg on the back of his head.  Thank you Ingrid for the suggestion!  (For
those less aware of American marketing, Cadbury is a candy company that
makes an egg shaped chocolate candy every Easter.  Their ads feature the
Easter Bunny making clucking noises.)
 
Linda Iroff
The Raisin Retreat
Oberlin, Ohio
http://www.oberlin.edu/~liroff/ncfs.html
[Posted in FML issue 2479]