Please Judith, do not beat yourself up, we all make mistakes. My heart
goes out to you. I too many times have repeated over and over to
everyone, watch where you step, be careful of the ferrets, etc. Back in
March, I was in a rush one day thinking I was doing something nice for
them by opening up a window for 2 of my ferts in a spare bedroom. On my
way I stepped on something. I swear I heard a pop or felt ! I'm still
not sure. At first I was in denial. I did not want to believe I did
that. How stupid could I be? I picked up both ferrets that were
sleeping in a comforter that they had burrowed into and had on the floor
hanging from the bed in the spare bedroom. Both ferrets looked okay.
Cooper J's eyes were wide though. He acted ok. I kept an eye on him.
THEN, I remembered that someone I knew that had ferrets, had stepped on
one accidently years ago and the ferret seemed okay but a few hours
later, that ferret was found dead in her cage hours later, apparently
from internal bleeding. SO, I had to find a vet immediately even though
of course it being a Saturday afternoon. My vet was unavailable in an
emergency surgery. I rushed Cooper J down the street to a 24 hour
emergency Animal Hospital. Good thing I did! He started going into
shock, they took x-rays, no broken bones. They found internal bleeding,
I had sheered his spleen! They had to get him stable. His veins
collapsed and they could not get a needle in and had to go into his hip
bone! He had a 40/60 chance of survival with surgery. She said ferrets
were hard to work on because they are so small inside (she compared them
to kittens). (Mind you this poor ferret had bilateral adrenal surgery
one year ago! but was up and ready to run that very night after surgery.
He also has heart problems and is over 6 years old. There just seems to
be something special about albinos!)
I cried, prayed, chanted out loud for him to make it. I think I did this
constantly. It was horrible the amount of guilt I felt. I just kept
crying over and over, "Come on Cooper J, you can do it, you can make it,
PLEASE !!!"
I went up to see him that night after surgery and he looked horrible.
He was on pain meds for one. He did eat and he tried to pull his collar
of his head, from what the vet said. (This is another thing that was
important, some ferrets that are very active in their cages or like to
tear them up, that have adrenal surgery might need collars, Cooper J did,
he was very active after his surgery and needed a collar so he would not
rip his stitches out and it kept him quiet). They had to make a special
collar for him that he could not pull off.
The next day I went up to visit and feed him and we were going to see if
he was ready to come home depending on what I thought. The vet felt his
chances had improved. During the surgery, she explained that she had
siphoned and filtered the blood from the internal bleeding and put it
back into him thus eliminating a blood transfusion. Cooper J ate and he
looked pretty good and I took him home. I had to build his blood back up
and fed him chicken soup 4 x daily with Nupro Ferret supplement added.
He was back to normal in a week or so! I was so very lucky!!! and so
grateful! He's still up and playing today and doing great and I am so
grateful to that vet. I brought Cooper J back to visit a couple weeks
later and everyone including the vet were so happy so see him and see
that he made it! I'm sure emergency vets staff sometimes wonder what
happens to their patients.
I just cannot STRESS that if you should STEP on a ferret or SIT on a
ferret or anything like that, PLEASE, take them to a vet IMMEDIATELY
whether you think you did damage or not and get an X-RAY and exam, it
can save their life!. For you own peace of mind. The spare bedroom is
now a FERRET ROOM. ALL but one ferret are in one room now and the floor
is WHITE TILE, NO BEDDING ON THE FLOOR, unless it is in some sort of
carrier,cat bed or container that I cannot easily step on and not in the
pathway!
Eleanor Mead and the 11 fuzzies
[Posted in FML issue 4561]
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