Greetings all,
 
Sadly, my Zoie was just diagnosed yesterday with lymphosarcoma.  She's
5yrs. old altered female, and relatively healthy at the moment.
 
Ultrasound picked up nodules on her stomach, spleen and pancreas, but
she's still active.  She has lost some weight over the last few months,
and did have an episode last week where she stopped eating and crashed
(hence the desire to have the ultrasound performed).  Forced feeding and
subq fluids at home got her back to her old self, but I realize this is
a temporary thing.  The prognosis is a poor one.  We are awaiting biopsy
results from the internal nodes, but I feel that's a formality at this
point.  My vet feels pretty confident in his diagnosis, and he's got
enough experience (Dr. Barrios of E. Hartford, CT) that I trust his
judgment.
 
So, the question before me is to chemo or not to chemo.  Personally, I
have never seen a success story with chemo in ferrets.  Of the three
ferrets I have known that developed this disease, one died before chemo
could be administered, and the other 2 died from drug toxicity, not the
disease itself.  Zoie's quality of life is more important to me than
grinding her health down with chemo just to buy her another few months
of life before she relapses.  That's my perspective at the moment.
 
I post here with a couple of questions:
 
1) Does anyone out there with a ferret who's profile approximates Zoie's
have a chemo success story that they'd like to share?
 
2) Does anyone out there have a chemo cautionary tale they'd like to
share?
 
3) Aside from chemo, what options have people had pretty reliable success
with in helping treat this disease?
 
Feel free to email me directly if you prefer to keep things private:
 
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best,
John
[Posted in FML issue 5183]