First Question: Farris is my oldest ferret. She came to me about a
year ago from a couple who hadn't taken good care of her at all. They
said she was about 5 years old and she was in pretty bad shape when
I got her. Her nails had probably never been cut, her teeth were
horrible, and her coat was a mess. All she did was sleep, eat, drink,
and poop.

Over the months her belly got bigger and bigger and I thought she was
just gaining weight because she was so inactive. Her eyes were quite
watery, though, and closer to the beginning of this year she started
showing signs of ECE, as well as a few of my others. I took her to the
Vet and got her on meds for it, same with the rest of my gang. While on
it she went down to normal ferret size and lost the wateryness in her
eyes. She also became slightly more active. However, over the past
months she hasn't been on the meds and she's bloated again. Her spleen
or something on her bottom left side feels really hard and she's just
horribly bloated. Her stool seems fine although someone in my gang
still has some icky poops sometimes, I'm just not sure who. Her eyes
are still bright, she's eating and drinking fine, and still has
slightly more energy than she did before. She doesn't seem in pain
even when I palpate her stomach. Why would the ECE drugs help? Also,
is there anything I can do for the bloating/does anyone have any idea
what's going on?

Second Question: My ferret Pyatt was put down June 27. It was right
after everyone seemed to get ECE that he started acting listless and
not himself and basically went down from there. A blood sample was
taken after he got put down as it was suspected that he had ADV and it
was 'sent away'. I called 3 weeks later as I'd had no response. After
many phone calls and dealing with idiot vet people it turns out that
they lost the sample of his blood. My question is will ADV still be
active in Pyatt if he's been frozen for over a month? He's been in my
freezer because I haven't had the money to cremate him and apparently
because part of me knew not to trust the Vet office I went to.

The Vet said we could take another sample but I don't trust them.
Friends suggested I make them pay for it since they've kinda put me
through a lot of crap: I have 6 other ferrets who I haven't been able
to take out of the house and I'm the assistant manager at a pet supply
store where I've had to be super careful about even any ferret owners
I came in contact with. It's been really frustrating, especially with
other ferret owners that I'm friends with. None of my other ferrets are
showing/have shown any signs of ADV, minus the ECE months ago if that
was at all related.

My 16 year old cat has early on set kidney failure so I just spent
all my saved up pet vet money and am trying to save it up again while
attempting to pay off debts, not to mention the hundreds I spent on
Pyatt trying (and failing) to figure out what was going on, so I really
don't have cash to go through yet another round of tests. Also, there
aren't really any vet's in my area that I trust anymore when it comes
to ferrets.

Basically: Help?! :(

[Posted in FML 6780]