I want to thank everyone who has written or sent cards. I've tried to doso
persoanlly, but I think I messed a few when I forwarded the condolences on
to Steve.  Steve isn't ready to read them, yet, but he has them stored away
for when he feels up to that.
 
Sorry about any typos.  It's been a very nervous time and I fog up a lot
still.
 
Spot's necropsy looked most like mink enteritis from visual observations
but the pathology hasn't ben done and that could change everything.
Unfortunately, Spot's remains had a wait beofer the work could be done
becasue our vet was away so the tissues may not be able to take it done
further than it being likely to be a member of the parvo family.  It also
tunred out that Spot had a huge adrenal tumor which had remained
asymptomatic.
 
'Chopper's little heart kept going well past the point where Hanan said
that he would not have thought that a ferret could live with that much
damage, only she did.  Because of her pronounced hair loss we all figured
that she might have an adrenal as well but her adrenals were fine; she was
just someone with the genes to lose hair with age, like me.  She was
kissing even just minutes before we let her go, and not crying if we held
her (but her lungs had fluid in them as we realized in her last hours), and
she had climbed only days before.  The entire time she had only 5 bad days
because her medicines worked so well for her.  When she had her last
ratchet into end stage cardiomyopthy it was fast.  Steve has a very good
ear -- he used to be the cello couch for Amy Hyller (sp?) one of Bernard
Greenhouse's grad students year ago -- and the best he could get was that
'Chopper's heart was something like 420 her last morning.
 
Again, thanks to eveyone who sent their sympathies.  I apologise if I lost
your message before I could thank you, but I have been reading each one and
sending them to Steve to save on his computer.
 
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 2427]