DON'T READ THIS IF YOU'RE EMOTIONAL right now
 
 
A little background: My wife's grandfather died on Thursday.  My last day
at work was Friday.  I'm leaving for Las Vegas on Monday and will be back
to move the rest of the house (and the wife) in June or July.  Since that
wasn't enough to deal with.....
 
Wednesday, Storm was happy and frolicking.  Thursday, she was lethargic,
wasn't eating or drinking, and was slightly swollen around her face.
Friday, she went to the vet.  He thought it might be kidney damage and
wanted to do an X-ray and bloodwork, but my sister-in-law wasn't sure of
what we wanted to spend, so he gave her directions and Science Diet
prescription food.  The vet said that bloodwork would only confirm kidney
disease, so we wouldn't treat her any differently, but it would let us know
how long she had.  He said it could be something she ate a long time ago
and it just now could have caught up to her.  My wife couldn't sleep Friday
night, so she sat up and talked with Storm for a few hours and told her it
was alright for her to go if she needed to.  Saturday morning, her energy
was up, but she went back for an X-ray.  He said she was still dehydrated
even though we were getting as much down her as we could.  Nothing was
visible as a blockage on the X-ray, so that made us feel much better.
 
Force feeding her was actually somewhat humorous.  She would make the
gagging sound when we put the syringe *near* her face, as if to somehow
convince us of what a horrible thing we were doing to her by making her
drink!
 
She had surprising amounts of energy considering the fact that she had only
a bit of the prescription diet.  When I put her on the floor, she would try
to bounce away, but lay down rather quickly with the "Man, I'm beat" look
which we've seen in our other ferrets.
 
We had to leave for visitation at about 4:00, so I put Storm into her
cage...she really didn't want to be there and tried to climb back out.
We took that as a good sign because of the overall increase in her energy
level.
 
When we returned at about 9:00, my wife got the food and water ready.  I
reached into the cage and discovered that it was too late for her.
 
I found a box and wrapped her in a blanket.  A coiled telephone cord which
I had to replace because of her attraction for it was placed on top so
she'd never be without a toy.  We took her out to my wife's parents house
and buried her next to Fosgate and Rockford.  As we left our house, snow
began to fall...and it continued until we were coming home.  She was named
Storm because of the snow storm which surrounded her arrival at our home.
We know that the snow which fell during her procession and burial meant
that this was obviously a predetermined event and beyond our control.
 
There was no warning, no preparation time for this little one.  She was
about three years old and still in her prime.  Very recently she was
kicking the butt of a ferret half her age with twice the energy.  But,
there's a certain comfort to know that she went quickly and didn't linger
like our other two.
 
The worst part was returning to an empty cage.  We have about forty pounds
of Totally Ferret and a brand new four story cage.  Family would ask if we
were out of the ferret business for awhile and we never knew how exactly to
answer.  Our home is just a house without a ferret.  We realized that truly
on Sunday, but had a funeral to attend and had to deal with more important
issues.
 
Obviously, we were in no hurry to return to a furless house, but we came
home anyway.  Allison's sister called and told us about the only ferret ad
in Sunday's News Leader at 7:30 that evening.  It was for a six month old
female albino.  I objected, but I called anyway.  I felt it was too soon to
replace Storm, let alone with a ferret that looked the same.  After talking
with the woman, she said that she would let us have her for $60 instead of
the $75 she had listed in the paper since she knew she'd be going to a good
home.
 
We went to an address in a worse part of town.  The apartment was terrible,
but Spirit was a delight!  She readily gave ferret kisses, didn't face nip
at all, and crawled back and forth between us.  She looked different than
Storm, different body build, different facial proportions.  We knew it was
right.  We're still deciding on her name: Spirit or Fate
 
She's home now with us now and has spent every day reminding us of why we
love ferrets.  The first night was pure discovery.  Spirit couldn't believe
the area which was hers to explore now and had difficulty deciding which
way to go.  If she grows into her foot size, we're going to have one big
girl on our hands!  Much to our relief, she walks like our first albino,
so she's definitely not a replacement for Storm.  She's so different and
energetic...and klutzy.
 
Our house is a home again.
[Posted in FML issue 2597]