Rebecca wrote:
>If you have your ferret taken
>into surgery, and it's like Socks' tumor-huge, absolutely positively huge
>(it had even caused the blood flow to move), and the tumor looks normal,
>would you allow your ferret to wake up from this surgery knowing that
>something this size and degree is possibly cancer?
 
Yes!  Because in our home it has only very rarely has been a malignancy,
and even then only one in 19 years had a adrenal malignancy spread at
all.  Usually in our guys they have been adenomas which are benign or
hyperplasias which also are benign, but we have seem malignancies for
which surgery was totally curative.
 
BTW, a balding tail can often equate to only being a skin disorder, so
should not induce panic.  Even when it is not the tail going bald sometimes
there can be a different cause,though that is much less common.  We have
had one who balded for what apparently were genetic causes, and one with
a very serious digestive disorder who has apparently lost it for
nourishment reasons (eats a lot but digests little due to damage).
 
Oh, we use night covers to reduce light exposure, and have not had any
reduction in adrenal hyperplasias, but we have not had an adrenal
malignancy since using them, which could be only coincidence and mean
nothing as with any home setting due to low numbers and more.  Don't take
that as meaning something for sure.
 
We are also not really prone to early adrenal growths in our home, though
we have seen ones at lower and lower ages than in earlier years, and that
is mostly among early neuters for the entire almost two decades.  Earlier
we didn't see them before late 6 or older and considered 5 young; now we
have had one at about 3 and 1/2 and two in a probable fourth year (same
ferret for the fourth year, different adrenals almost 6 months apart, our
first ever to need a rapid second surgery -- most of our's haven't even
needed a second surgery let alone a fast one).
[Posted in FML issue 3438]