>From:    Alex Weinle <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Blood in urine
>of my little fuzzies are ill.  He sporadically has a little bit of blood in
>his urine...like I said it is very sporadically but I have already taken
>him to the vet and treated him with antibiotics for a bladder infection.
>Unfortunatly the problem still is here.  My question is has anyone ever
>experienced this??
 
I'm hardly a medical expert, so please understand that I can only relate an
experience I've had with blood in the urine of one of my guys.
Unfortunately, you are not going to like this particular experience but the
likelyhood of your ferret having this same problem is probably very slim to
almost none so please don't panic.
 
Max started straining and exhibiting signs of blood in his urine.  He was
started on antibiotics, and it seemed to clear up for a day or so, but then
came back.  He strained quite a bit and spent a lot of time running around
trying to pee.  This problem popped up just shortly before he was due to
have adrenal surgery, and we wanted to clear this problem up first.  After a
while, it was apparent it wasn't going to go away with antibiotics and we
thought it might be related to a prostrate problem brought on by his adrenal
condition.
 
He seemed to be in some pain at times and occasionally passing more blood,
so we decided to let the surgeon go in and take a look at his bladder and
prostate and take the adrenal while there.
 
About 3/4's of the right adrenal was taken (his left was already gone) and
the surgeon noted that his bladder wall was hard and about 1/4" thick.
Plus, the bladder was flattened and not round like it should be.  A biopsy
of the bladder was taken.
 
We took Max home and tried to make him comfortable.  He got lots of sub-q
fluids, which seemed to ease his efforts at urinating but he was still
passing some blood.  Then, a few days after surgery, he started passing
quite a bit of blood in his urine, whimpered quite a bit when he tried to
pee and about the same time we got the results of the biopsy on his bladder.
Lymphosarcoma.  Our vet said this was very unusual, but there was no
mistake.
 
Max was passing too much blood, the prognosis was not good at all, and he
was in a fair amount of pain.  We made the always difficult decision that
the best thing for Max was to let him go.  That was September 10th of last
year and I still mistakenly call any one of my ferrets Max on an almost
daily basis.
 
Like I said, you wouldn't like my experience.  It isn't one I'd want to see
repeated.
 
For the ferrets,
Mike
 
* Michael F. Janke, [log in to unmask]
* Secretary, South Florida Ferret Club and Rescue, Inc.
*
* Visit our web site: http://www.miamiferret.org
[Posted in FML issue 2328]