I wonder if, as she was dying, my beloved Bizcochita breathed her
last faint, shallow breaths in concert with mine after she had become
unconscious. I had placed her on my lap after she had taken her last
crying gasp to send a text message to my vet that it was time, that it
sounded like she was suffocating. Then I noticed she had gone limp, and
I knew she had died. But maybe not quite. There are those final moments
even during euthanasia when a pet isn't all the way gone, when the vet
leaves the client alone for a bit before coming back to make sure the
heart has stopped. I had cuddled Bizcochita in her fleece wrap and
placed her on my chest, stroking her beautiful, soft, creamy-colored
fur. The last thing that happened before she was truly, truly gone was
I could feel her chest rising and falling in response to mine. A gentle
breathing in concert with mine. Perhaps it was an autonomic response.
It sure felt like the real thing.

The night before, as I was hoping she would recover, she had placed
her cheek against mine to support her neck so she could breathe better.
A tumor in her ear had grown and was squeezing her airway after we
had emplaced a feeding tube to enable her to swallow. She often
repositioned her neck to open her airway and breathe better. As she
breathed, her head moved and gently nudged my cheek in the same
direction. Then I breathed and nudged my cheek back against hers. Then
she breathed and nudged her cheek back against mine. Back and forth we
rocked, like a pendulum, her cheek and mine, for several minutes.

Earlier that morning, I had placed my hand beside her as she was
resting on my bed. I was so exhausted from waking to tube-feed her,
give her meds, and just listen for her and be with her. She climbed
onto my hand and stroked me with her furry little body as she adjusted
position every now and then, moving across my hand, repositioning her
head, grasping me with her paws, so she could breathe better. We must
have lain like that for a couple of hours as I dozed. I loved her so.

I so hoped she would be able to beat the cancer, that another round of
chemo would kill it.

I have loved all of my ferrets, but Bizcochita was the most amazing
ferret I have ever met. Within days of bringing her home, collected
from a handyman who found her on his patio near a major highway, she
jumped through the rain sluice from the second-story balcony onto the
concrete below. I had seen her sticking her little nose through the
opening and pulled her back, but didn't think she would actually jump.
In a panic, when I couldn't find her, I called a couple of ferret
shelter operators who came and helped me look for her. We posted signs
and scoured the neighborhood. One of them found her in the laundry room
of an apartment complex next door where a tenant had closed the door
so she couldn't get out. During the fall from the second story, she
had dislocated her little elbow. After cautioning me that she might
be crippled for life, an accomplished canine surgeon fixed her up. So
right away, I had a $900 ferret on my hands.

One night, I heard a scratching noise behind the plaster wall in my
bedroom. I went into a panic wondering where Bizcochita was. Just as I
feared, she was nowhere to be found. I cut a hole in the wall, pulled
her out, and patched the hole again. A few days later, she disappeared
once more and, after I posted flyers on both floors of my apartment
building, she turned up behind the walls of another tenant's bedroom
three doors away. When Bizcochita heard me calling to her from the
other side of their wall, she came home on her own, harboring a single
flea. I finally found the avenue of her escape -- a hole that hadn't
been sealed around a water pipe beneath the kitchen sink.

Her last great stunt in that apartment building was when she climbed
up on the roof. It was a steep tile roof and I couldn't follow her. I
asked the manager for help and she placed a cage up there, at the same
time threatening to evict me if I went up there myself. After she
caught Bizcochita, she lied to me and said she hadn't seen her. Four
days later, she suggested I check with the Animal Humane Society, and
there was my little fur-muffin, a bit confused and no worse for wear.

After she died, wracked with grief, I awoke to the sound of gentle
snoring that reminded me of Bizcochita's wheezy breathing in her last
days. Aroused by the sound of my own tear-congested nose, I remembered
the times when she had climbed up on my bed in the middle of the night
and gone to sleep near my feet.

I will not be getting any more ferrets, at least not soon, and not just
because I now live in the land of the California Department of Fish and
Game, arguably one of the most senseless, self-serving agencies on the
planet (and I am not anti-government). Yes, it's been heartbreaking not
being able to take Bizcochita outdoors where she wanted to explore and
meet people because of fear that Fish and Game might seize her. I also
have been unemployed for three years. I remember Sukie Crandall posting
a message once about the importance of having money set aside for vet
care. Not being able to do so has been very hard for me. At 7 years
and 8 months of age, Bizcochita was the strongest ferret I've ever
known. She went through a lot and survived: surgeries to repair a
broken elbow, repair a broken tooth, remove her spleen, remove as much
as possible of the tumor in her ear, chemotherapy, radiation therapy,
surgery to insert a feeding tube, and a final chemotherapy, not to
mention ultrasounds, X-rays, blood tests, and medication. But in the
last year or two, she didn't get checkups often enough for a ferret
her age and she didn't get surgery soon enough on her ear. We also
missed another tumor growing near her urinary tract. Until she became
emaciated during radiation because she couldn't swallow, she had
amazing muscle mass. I can still see her, barely more than skin and
bones, triumphantly holding her tennis ball aloft as she carried it
around the room.

Of all my ferrets, Bizcochita was the most like me. She wanted to do
things her own way, she had a hard time sitting still, and she loved
to explore.

Bizcochita came to California as a kit in the care of a young man who
purchased her during a trip to Las Vegas. She was born in about April
2004. She died at approximately 1:04 a.m. Dec. 30, 2011. Please keep
her in your thoughts. Please help me honor her memory. Please take
as much of that unending, unconditional love she gave to me and to
everyone she met and pass it on to others as much as you can. I love
her and I miss her very much.

Linda

[Posted in FML 7291]