Just to show that there are some happy ferret stories too:
 
Some of you may recall me posting previously about my ferret Sammy.  He was
diagnosed with insulinoma about a year ago.  His blood glucose at that time
was about 65.
 
The first thing we tried was surgery; the vet removed a couple of nodules
from Sammy's pancreas last June, but that didn't seem to help Sammy much.
Over the past year we started Sammy on Prednisone, occasionally increasing
the dosage, as well as adding supplemental duck soup feedings 4 times daily
to Sammy's diet.
 
In early April this year Sammy's attacks were on the rise, and increasing
his pred dosage wasn't helping him much.  Fasting B.G. would sometimes
drop as low as 20.  I decided to try surgery again, since Sammy was also
losing hair on his tail and so we had to check the adrenals anyway.
 
The vet removed Sammy's left adrenal, which was slightly enlarged.  He also
did a partial pancreatomy this time, removing about 1/3 of Sammy's pancreas
at the rear where a number of small nodules were clustered, as well as
removing two larger nodules near the middle and front.
 
Two weeks later when Sammy's stitches came out, I was stunned to hear his
blood glucose was now 100.  Another couple of weeks have gone by since
then, and Sammy is doing great.  He's completely off prednisone, is no
longer getting supplemental feedings, is eating great on his own and is
full of life and energy.  I never expected such a turn-around.  I couldn't
be more pleased. :)
 
--
John Rosloot, Caregiver to Cassidy and Sammy
With loving memories of my dear departed Buddy
Technical analyst, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
http://www.cs.uregina.ca/~john/ferrets
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[Posted in FML issue 3046]