This should help you:
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/chordoma.html
including
>While all chordomas are considered potentially malignant, metastasis
>is uncommon and has not yet been reported in chordomas arising at
>the tail tip.
 
Steve and I removed Chiclet's original IV today since the second one is
working perfectly.  That really is painful, given the needle and tape,
even being careful and using the right type of shears with a blunt tip
extending out at 90' from the cutting surface to protect the skin.
Chiclet took Steve's finger in her mouth but she never bit him.  That was
a very hard time -- very high tension and worry -- but we know that we
can do it on our own, now.  Right now she is sleeping with a little IV
torb; that extra pain was a bit more than she needed to be dealing with.
It's touch and go but we have hopes as long as she keeps trying so hard
to make it.  Once or twice each day she even tries to crawl over to the
paper when she has to go the bathroom -- and she did so last night and
again early today even with two IV setups and wraps -- one in each front
leg.  *If* she can just survive this infection and the cellulitis she has
good prospects; it's making it through these that isn't at all a given.
 
As someone who worked with primates for a number of years I can very well
understand the love shared with wild animals, and I know that this has to
be a scary time for people with PDs, but it is important FOR FERRETS that
people in power not equate domestic ferrets which
 
1. are not removed from the wild,
2. have a multi-thousand year history as a domestic species, and
3. do not pose as large a zoonotic threat as rodent or primate species
 
with OTHER species that
 
A. are removed from the wild themselves or within a few generations
   especially if the habitat is already compromised (instead of
   rebuilding the habitat),
B. are wild,
C. can pose a significant zoonotic threat (though these risks can be
   minimized by those who use good sense, of course).
 
There ARE great differences and to PROTECT FERRETS it is important that
any time the understanding of those differences are forgotten to point
out the differences.
 
One thing that is so sad is that Bush so recently put a 3 year moratorium
on a number of types of habitat and species protection work which would
have helped the assorted PD species and others.  Their best bet would be
habitat preservation, of course.  Mexico is doing much better work in
this regard for this type of habitat and these species than the U.S. is
doing, but more is needed and it is needed here.  PDs are an important
part of their habitat.  In areas with PD burrows plants (especially
grasses) grow better -- more thickly and larger, in wide array, and with
more nutritional content than in areas without their help.
 
I understand the love, the pain, and the worry.  I loved working with
primates but have had to do without them for a number of years now --
almost 22, actually.  Of course, I know why that is most fair even though
it is not most comfortable.
 
If you go to
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1318529
you will find a very recent story on how they are obtained for the pet
industry.
 
It IS a real danger to ferrets when those in power mistakenly equate
ferrets with PDs.
[Posted in FML issue 4201]