Hello FML, I hope your day is full of warm fuzzy kisses! :-)
 
I am so frustrated, that I had to turn to you guys for "support".  I live
in a pretty good sized community in North Dakota, so we have a few vets,
but none of them no anything about adrenal disease.  I have been to 2
different vets and checked with 4 others...only 2 of them in town are
somewhat ferret knowledgeable .  The first vet is someone I went to for a
year and moved on to another vet that I was a little bit more comfortable
with concerning my ferrets.  Here is the story: I took my 4 year old
female, Roo, in to the vet because she had a swollen vulva, hair loss on
her tail, shoulders and lost a lot of weight.  I suspected adrenal and
the vet looked at her and said yup, looks like adrenal.  I asked him if
he was going to do a Tennessee Panel and he didn't know what it was, so I
explained to him about it.  He said it wouldn't be necessary.  He told me
it was not a big hurry to do the surgery because she still has a lot of
hair left.  I thought...what does that matter?  Why wait?  Wait until she's
weak?  Well, she had just had her distemper shot so I wanted to wait a
couple of weeks before I scheduled her for the surgery.  I made a call
yesterday to my vet and said that I am ready to schedule her for the
surgery (now she has a tiny bit of bloody discharge coming from her vulva).
He said that there must be something else going on with her right now
because discharge from the vulva is not usually associated with adrenal.
Correct me if i'm wrong but I thought that it was one of the clinical
signs.  He said I should bring her in and he'll take a look at her to see
if maybe she has a urinary infection or something.  This vet told me that
he has never done an adrenalectomy before...but he studied under a vet who
was very good at them (who is no longer in this town) and assured me he
could do it.  So I am really frustrated and worried...I feel like he is
just putting this off and I don't know why.
 
There is a vet 3 1/2 hours away from here that does adrenalectomies, but it
will cost me an additional $200 -$300 then what I will already be paying
here.  But I will take her there if I have to.  I don't want my little Roo
to be uncomfortable anymore, she's eating and playing fine, but her vulva
is extremely swollen and I don't want to wait.  After my conversation from
this vet I got the feeling that he had an attitude of "so you think you
know more than me", which made me feel very uncomfortable.  Thanks for
listening FML...any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.
 
*Fuzzy hugs & kisses*
 
Tracy J.
Tango, Chico, Roo, Pepe', Spunky & Leah
[Posted in FML issue 3203]