Dear Dr. Williams,
 
I would be so grateful if you could shed some light on this problem for
me...I am worried sick to death about my Grommie.  She is a very small 2
year old MF chocolate girl, who apparently gets stressed very easily.  We
(my fiance and I) got her in late November, after her owner was no longer
able to keep her due to the advent of a puppy.  She did have a cagemate,
but he was sold several weeks prior to our adopting her.  She seemed
lonely, so we adopted beautiful little Quincy from Ferrets R #1 (Go FAITH
and her fuzzies!).
 
The day after he arrived, Grommie became very sick glassy-eyed, vomiting,
nonresponsive.  In both the vomit and accompanying diarrhea, there were
small cubes/pieces of something solid.  We took her (and the poop/vomit
samples) to the vet, who performed an Xray and various other tests for
intestinal blockages, etc nothing.  They put her on antibiotics and Pepto.
She seemed to perk up after a few days of meds, and for the past several
weeks has been running around and knocking things over as usual :-).  We
assumed that it was stress from a new playmate.  Then...
 
I woke up this morning to find diarrhea all over the cage, splattered
all over the towel that she sleeps in, and the hammock she occasionally
frequents.  The coloring went from almost a rusty brown to very light, and
in all of it there were those small solid chunks.  I m pretty sure that
some of it was vomit, also containing those chunks.  She seems fine though
no glassy eyes, very inquisitive and response and playful.  I also watched
both her and Quincy use the litter-box and both poops seem normal,
well-formed, etc.  Is this periodic diarrhea normal?  Does it sound like
anything specific to you?  Please help, if you can.
 
Thank you,
 
Caitie Childress
[Posted in FML issue 3323]