This is Susie Lee speaking for The Ferret And Dove Sanctuary's fur-folks.
 
We nearly always have at least one (more often several, because of our
large ferret-population of elderly and already-cancer-afflicted ferrets
turned over to us) ferret who is plainly up against the clock and
fighting with that durned clock over each tick and every minute just
wanting to stick around to play One more day, or be able to snuggle in
with their buddied ferrets one more night.
 
The current ones who are in this corner (not unlike where Rocky is, in
his own corner, winning another "round" with each new day...yeah you Know
he pumps up his little ferret-hands with each new day!  Go Rocky!) are
Nala Bubble-Bubbles, who has several kinds of cancer, including damag to
her liver, making her look SO pale when she's sleeping, lately, that you
have to look to see if she's breatheing...Yet she strains to lick each of
us and to groom and lick at the faces and fur of each of her four other
cage-mate buddies every day she's here.  Nala Bubble-Bubbles wants so
patently Much to stay near her buddies and give kissies to each of us
that we simply can not just go and have her euthanized unless she starts
showing us she's in any pain or shows us she's uncomfortable.  Yet, once
a person's liver begins to go, there's not really a lot of time left to
live with.
 
Another one has been RazzmaTazz Dazzle, whom we first were introduced
to more than 6 years ago as a found stray, referred to us by our local
Humane Society chapter.  We looked after this little lady lightning bolt
of energy for just over a month before she found herself an adoptive
owner who kept her for nearly 6 years, but then Razzy developed
insulinoma and the adoptor's work-schedule kept her from being on-time
with food and meds for the treatment of it so that RazzmaTazz came back
to us to stay.  We took her to a vet who had ultrasound and other
modern equipment who diagnosed Five kinds of cancer in Razzy, including
lymphoma, a golf-ball-sized abdominal tumor, and recurrent skin
melanomas, of which she's going back in this Monday to have yet another
skin growth nicked off at the vets' before it balloons into something
she can't handle on top of her plateful.  Yet with five kinds of cancer,
the ol' RazzmaTazz is patently UNready to call quits to anything, so we
won't call quits on her until she "says" so...which, from her
always-has-been-feisty, if also friendly nature, might be never.  She
and one of her buddies, Nala Bubble-Bubbles, are among those who show
us they'd rather pass on through the Veil at home, "in their own bed"
(so-to-speak), so that if this is at all possible, and they neither one
display signs of either pain or overt discomfort, we're inclined to let
them stick together for whatsoever time they have, enjoying their
buddies' company and each new day that they, like Rocky, have "won" their
latest Life Championship rounds in, lately.  And we have no doubts but
that each is Winner and Champion of each day they make their fights to
stick around...we humans are only their "managers"...so as long as these
super-spirited ferrets are fighting their own ills so valiantly, and show
us they Want to stick around, it seems actually craven of us to throw in
the towel for them while they're still on their feet and ...ehhh, dooking
it out.
[Posted in FML issue 4878]