Hello All!  I haven't posted in months due to an overly busy work schedule, but
now I could use some advice on one of my little friends' problem.
 
Allie, our silver mutt, who supposedly turns two years old next week, started
losing patches of hair from her tail last week.  We're in a nominal FFZ, so we
took her to an "exotic animal" specialist in Indy.  Dr. Breitwiser was
concerned, especially when it took her 15 minutes to get a couple of drops of
blood from Al--she said that this meant that her blood vessels were collapsing,
which I still don't totally understand.  Anyway, the blood work came back today
and they show Allie's lymphocyte count at "47".  The Dr. said that anything
over 35 can indicate lympho.  She ruled out Aleutian disease (a concern b/c of
our mink) because Allie's stools are normal.
 
Anyway, she said that we would need a biopsy to confirm the lympho.  If Al has
it, she could be treated with chemotherapy (>$600 w/lots of discomfort for
Allie and no great prognosis), if not, we're back where we started.  We don't
want to go the chemo route, so at this point we're just planning to give her
Prednisone to slow down the progress of the disease.
 
Could we be making a big mistake?  Is it likely that she could have another
disease that would be discovered during the biopsy?  Allie is acting totally
normal, except for the hair loss and some lethargy (and it is August).  She's
always had a very wobbly gait, so it's hard to tell whether she's losing
control of her backside.  The vet also told us that Al looks quite a bit older
than two to her (we adopted her in a very scroungy state when she was
supposedly three months old).
 
This is stretching out longer than intended, but a brief update on our other
fuzzies:
     Hershey the mink is now happily back in the wild.  I released her in a
recently restored wetland wildlife refuge, where she hopefully won't have to
compete with too many conspecifics for a while.
     Felix and Bandit (ferrets) have gone to live with my best man and his
fiancee, who have always wanted fuzzies but just recently moved into their own
apartment.  They are now Leila (sci-fi character) and Zaphod (as in Beeblebrox,
because he's always getting in trouble).  Now everybody is happy, because we
don't have to run two sets of fighting ferrets separately and they all get more
playtime.
 
Happy sock-hunting and good health to your little ones,
 
Laura McDonald, and Smokey, 'Possum & Allie ("Aah!  I'm SHAVED!!)
 
[Posted in FML issue 0935]