hello fellow ferret lovers,
 
my name is monica funston, and its very hard to write to you all.  last
thursday, our baby of the family, Sly-Bear, a handsome lil sable, passed
away in my arms.  i've never posted to FML, but always took some time out
each day to read at least some of every mailing.  what got me to write,
was ..  well, not because our ferret died, its still very hard to even talk
about him.  me and my sisters cry ourselves to sleep everynight to mourn our
loss.
 
but, i just wanted to answer Serenity Cromer's question about her fuzzy
wheezing.  Please take your ferret to the doctor for a check-up.  hopefully
she is alright and it may have been just the wood chips, but just to be safe.
 
i dont want to scare anyone, but i do think that maybe if we had acted
sooner, Sly would still be with us.
 
a few weeks ago, Sly-Bear started to wheeze at night.  we all thought that
he had just caught a cold.  Sly always knew how to take care of himself when
he caught a cold, by sleeping a lot and drinking lots of water.  we would
give him some tylenol occasionally, but he always got better mostly by
himself.  then after about ten days, he seemed to get better, always wanting
to play with us, and he just seemed to be back to his active self, however,
late at night, he would start wheezing, like he had something stuck in his
throat, we would hold him and pet him, so he would settle down.  we saw
nothing he could be choking on and after a little while, he would go soundly
back to sleep.  when that went on for another week, we thought it might be
that he had allergies, around here in albuquerque its been allergy time and
we thought maybe it was that, since in every other aspect, Sly seemed like
himself.  so we cleaned his bedding, and cleaned his cage hoping that would
help his allergies.  we even checked his litter box, and his stools were
normal looking.  and he was eating like normal.
 
but i started to get worried after the wheezing happened for a few more
days, and when we noticed he started to not eat as much anymore.  also, i
had stayed up all night helping him sleep and stuff.  so on my mom's first
day off from work, she took him in to see the doctor.
 
she came home crying ... our baby Sly-Bear had pneumonia.  only half of one
lung was healthy...it was pretty bad.  the doctor said that if my mom had
waited another week, Sly would have died within days.  Sly stayed there for
four days, getting oxygen, and having anti-biotics pumped into his little
system.  and he seemed to have reacted very well to the medication.  we also
noticed that he was eating normally again.  but we did notice that he was
very weak.  he could only walk across the livingroom floor and he would have
to rest a few minutes before moving around some more.  we thought he was
getting better and we were glad he was home with us again.
 
over the weekend Sly got worse though and he stopped eating again, so my mom
took him into the doctor again.  he stayed there for two days and came home
on wednesday.  the doctor told her, there wasnt anything they could do for
him, but he did not want to recommend to put him to sleep since his heart
was beating so strong and since Sly seemed to want to live so badly... he
was a fighter.
 
and the doctor said that he would have a better chance being with us here at
home.  so my mom and my sisters and i took time off school to nurse him.
between the four of us, we took turns sleeping so that at least two of us
could be with him all the time.  after about a day, Sly-Bear started to get
worse.  he refused to eat, drink, or let us hold him.  but we stayed with
him, and coaxed him into licking water from our hands mixed with ferretone.
it took all his strength to breath and i think he was afraid to go to sleep.
 
oh god, ...... it hurts too much to say more.  Sly-Bear meant soooo very to
us... we loved him with all our hearts and we will miss him.  im just very
thankful that we had the chance to love him.  Sly-Bear brought us so much
joy.
 
ferrets are so loving, they make us laugh, with their antics.  No matter how
stressful our days could be, Sly was our medicine... just holding him for a
few minutes would take all that away.  and even when he was being his
mischeivous self, knocking over ceramic figurines, chewing up our expensive
leather shoes, running off with lil toothpaste boxes, no one could even stay
upset with him for more than a few minutes.
 
i did not even mean to go on for so long.  im sorry.  i better go.  but
thank you for letting me talk about Sly-Bear.  it helped a little to talk
about him.  however, im about a week behind in all my classes and i dont
think Sly-Bear would have wanted me to flunk out of the semester with only
two weeks left to go.
 
thank you.
 
monica
[Posted in FML issue 1917]