We have a ferret, he is about 5 - 6 years old. We got him from a rescue
and the previous owners let the kids take care of him. We believe he
was fed dog food (how much or how long we don't know).

When out playing he has never been a fire ball. He has had a couple
rare times where he was a fire ball but only a couple. Most of the time
he rests off in a corner, hammock, or sleep sack. We had him tested for
Insulinoma several time and it was always normal. One or two of those
time we found he had a stomach bug for which he received antibiotics.
His stools were anywhere from loose, mucoid, green, brown, maybe seedy
looking, and normal, they varied a lot from day to day and week to
week, usually they were very very soft and wet and sometime there was
a lot of it..

We had been wondering if he had insulinoma, or lymphoma, or IBD, or
food allergy.

Several months ago he started to act worse, he walked funny, kind of
ataxic kind of side ways for a step or two. He looked so bad and weak,
I was afraid he would not make it, to the morning, when our vet was
open (after hours clinics in our area do not treat ferrets). Since I
knew prednisone was used for all the illness, we had been thinking he
might have, I gave him some prednisone that night and the following
morning. When I got him to our vet he looked like a new ferret. Since
pred can mask a lot illness, we didn't know what he had.

We continued to give him the pred and even went up on his dose because
he continued to have problems walking. He had been doing pretty well on
the prednisone, and we switched to prednisolone since he would take it
off a spoon. He didn't want anything to do with the prednisone. It was
a pleasure to see him up and walking around during play time. He still
was not a ball of fire by any means but he was moving around instead of
dosing in a corner.

Lately however he has gone from a couch potato to a door stop. We took
him into the vet where his glucose was high 150. He had a stomach bug
and is on an antibiotic now. He is doing some better but is still very
couch potato, but at least he is getting up and around a little. Our
vet wanted us to go down on his prednisolone (he was on .8 ml of
1mg/1ml twice a day. He is now down to .7cc twice a day. But I see
times where he kind of walks funny. We are waiting to complete his
antibiotics before going any down any further.

He has a very large spleen. Not the largest our vet has seen but close.
As big as a small dogs spleen.

To find out if it is lymphoma it would cost about $800.00. We just
can't afford $800.00. My thoughts are if it is lymphoma, what good
would it do to know that. I believe the treatments for cancer are
pretty rough. I mean if we put him through the surgery and cancer
treatments we would be subjecting him to a lot more pain and nausea and
fear and chances are we would end up losing him in the end or along the
way. It seems better to make him as comfortable as possible now rather
than put him through all that. I could be wrong but cancer meds are
hard on the body and cause nausea and pain. The cure nearly as bad as
the disease and there is a good chance the cure may not work.

What are they lymphoma treatments like for the ferret. Are they always
successful? How long do they have to have the treatments (weeks,
months, years?)?.

Now it's possible that he doesn't have lymphoma our vet looked at the
fluid from a lymph node and didn't see anything, but that may be due
to the fact he is on prednisolon.

I was curious to find out what your thoughts are on him. Its sometimes
best to get an objective opinion. Please be honest I would like to
know.

I appreciate any advice you have.

Mike

[Posted in FML 6417]