This was a very difficult decision.  After long and careful thought and
debate, my husband and I have closed Peoria Area Ferret Connection.  He has
had two major surgeries almost a year apart (total hip replacements) and in
the middle of that I had a major surgery and four weeks after his second
total hip, I had additional cancer surgery - a cancer that took my mother
when I was seven years old and the same cancer that my oldest sister was
just diagnosed with.
 
I am exhausted and our finances are drained.  We have max'd out our health
insurance in less than a year.  I do understand the situation with the
ferret breeder down by St. Louis, but honestly, right now there isn't much
I can do.  It will take years to pay off the debt that we have incurred due
to the club.  We have tried to help the ferrets in Central Illinois.  We
have paid ransom for severely starved ferrets.  I have missed activities in
my children's lives to pick up ferrets all over.  I trippled the milage on
my car in a year (and blew a lifter).
 
I'm sure that closing the club will not be a popular decision with people,
but I'm at the end of my rope.  My own ferrets think I've abandoned them.  I
know I haven't incurred anything that shelter operators don't deal with
every single day.  I just have to take a break.  I have talked to many
people who describe to me how they abused and often times murdered their
ferrets and want me to give them a ferret "because they miss their ferret."
 
I know all of this is nobody's fault but my own.  People will go just as far
as you let them.  One of our club members will try to pick up whatever
pieces she can and get together for meetings now and then.  She does not
want to put out a newsletter or sell anything.  She wants more of a support
group.  I hope she will do well.  The ferrets and ferret people need someone
to turn to.
 
I've rambled on long enough.  I just felt I needed to explain things.
 
Thanks for listening.
 
Mary Oyer
[Posted in FML issue 2060]