Hi everyone
 
Its been extremely busy at the shelter and I apologize for the lack of
updates.  Its tough when ya do it alone.
 
Pee Dee is still doing fine -- no signs of his adenocarcinoma recurring and
he is now happily sharing a cage with two other ferrets -- Bandit (he had
the feeding tube in for 6 weeks) and Farrah, a fairly new turn-in who has
adrenals.
 
We lost two of our kids - one shelter, one personal.  Nicodemus, a very
handsome silver mitt, was adopted out and suddenly developed problems --
diarrhea, lethargy and fresh blood in the stools.  Because of his
condition, we (the adoptive mom, myself and the vet) decided that putting
him down was the kindest thing - he was in such pain, he had deteriorated
very quickly and the outlook was bleak (intusseption or telescoped bowel).
But he will be sorely missed by his mom and me.
 
Bruiser, our own personal ferret, had stopped eating over the weekend.
I force-fed him (I'll talk about this in another post) until our vet
appointment on Monday.  We had a feeding tube inserted and meds prescribed.
Bruiser wasn't bouncing back - and on Friday, I noticed blood in his
stools.  We did exploratory surgery on Friday and found a bleeding liver
and lymphoma.  The ironic thing about Bruiser is that he was given to us
back in 1993, when our ferret, Nicodemus, died of an anemia-type illness.
To have lost another Nicodemus and then Bruiser shook us.
 
Trella, our 8yo bilateral adrenal girl, decided that Mom hadn't been at the
vet often enough that week and she also crashed.  She spent two days on IV
fluids and now she is fine.
 
Garrett, our "timex ferret" had another bad episode.  On top of insulinoma,
adrenals, cardiomyopathy and an allergy to isoflurane, he has also seeminly
developed asthma or like symptoms.  We have breathin (injectible) for his
bad times -- well on Sunday (as we were taking in the fact that Bruiser
had died), Garrett literally turned blue.  He couldn't breathe.  We
administered the shot and rushed him to the emergency vet where he was on
pure oxygen until he recovered.  He is fine now - but we wonder what will
happen the next time.
 
Lisa Leidig, Head Ferret
The Ferret Haven "By-the-Sea"
http: www.ferrethaven.org
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[Posted in FML issue 3029]