Hello fuzzies & friends!  I'm Connie and my (one & only) ferret is K.C.  ,
this was named for mine and my roomates initials.  Anyway I just discovered
FML and how to use the computer and I wanted to say to Scott & little
Hannah, I know what you're going thru.  K.C.  had the same problem.  The
vets here in N.E.  La.  look at ferrets as life from another planet.  I
noticed K.C.'s lethargia and then he quit food and H2o .  He went from 3.5
lbs to 1.5 in a couple of days!  I was probably paranoid, but it all came on
after a visit to his 2 ferret friends who had both been doing the green poop
and vomiting gig.  Then I didn't know about ECE.  I even spoke with Judy
Bell of MFs and she thought they had coccxyidiosis (sp) .  Has hannah been
around sick fuzzies?  I took K.C.  to 3 vets in 1 day $$$$!  I was
desparate!  The one that worked put him on amoxicillin, a steroid to help
his energy come back, but don't let her play, and that hi-protein soft cat
food (ps) maybe was the name of it ,I forget.  Plus I tried to force
pedialite replacement drink down him witha syringe 10cc.  All this worked
after a week or so.  I had a fit weening him off the soft yummie food.  He
was so weak I had hand fed him.  During all this the xrays revealed a lump
on his tail near his last sacral vertebrae.  The 3 vets all said chondroma!
The lesion had infiltrated two caudal vertebrae completely .  All vets said
euthanize K.C. as chondroma is a fast metastizing (spreading) bone cancer.
Removing the tail they said would be futile.  Working in surgery and the lab
I'm hard headed and I called the pathologist in TX.  who read the Bx.  My
old , (fired) vet had misquoted the diagnosis!  If I had accepted this K.C.
would be in the pet cemetary now.  What he had was a Cordoma which is a
nonaggressive lesion and a cancer of the notocord remnant.  Well K.C.  no
longer has his tail.  His booty looks like a bears with a little stump!
He's 6 months out from his cancer, the vet whom I fired gave him 2-3 months.
Why do Vet. colleges not require more pathology on ferrets for their
students, Knowing how popular ferrets are now .  Only my med.  training and
stubborness saved K.C's life.  Most people would not tell their vets what to
do .  Well I said all this to say this Scott DON'T GIVE UP.  Try amoxi.
steroids and hi protein feed from the vet.  Good luck .  Please excuse the
length of this letter.
 
                                  Connie and my tailess weenierat!
[Posted in FML issue 1316]