I guess I missed the original post. A marrow test can be done to check
about some types of anemia or to check for some malignancy questions.
For insulinoma looking at blood glucose is what is done. Years ago some
also looked at blood insulin levels, but (surprise?) when insulin was
up sugar was down and vice versa...

BTW, we have had ferrets who were cured of insulinoma by surgery
*early* in the course of the illness. They went on to have many
years or life without any recurrence. "Early" is the critical term.

Insulinoma is not the only disease which can cause low blood sugar.
If there is also anemia there may be an adrenal tumor needing removal
(Then both adrenal neplasia and insulinoma can be tackled at the same
time.), BUT there may be a non-insulinoma cause of the problems such
as lymphoma or carcinoma at the pancreas. Lymphoma can also be present
in marrow, but I don't know if that carcinoma tends to go to marrow in
a ferret, though pancreatic carcinoma in a ferret can also easily be
in the spleen and that can cause anemia. Of the three for ferret
pancreatic illnesses, insulinoma is the least aggressive, lymphoma is
in the middle, and carcinoma is the most aggressive. (Notice that this
is different from how lymphoma and carcinoma behave when in an
adrenal.)

Be sure that all vets have full test results and that test results
were done by a lab that is used to processing ferret results.

Waiting to hear from hospital:
Sometimes the employees in hospitals slip up so call for results...

"Rodent" could be a receptionist error, or it might be software. We
were pretty appalled that a hospital did that and learned that an often
used piece of record tracking software put all non-cats, non- dogs,
non-agricultural mammals in a grouping called "rodent". You'd think
someone had never heard of the word "other" at that software company.

Rachel, the vet will see if there is a possible infection (such as an
anal gland infection) preventing complete control of the sphincter,
will look into causes of loose stools, and will look into things that
can reduce control such as spinal injury or lymphoma in the spinal
cord.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 5842]