The ferret with the difficult spay:
 
Did the vet also check to see if she has diseased adrenal glands while
inside her doing her spay?  If so, she may be having problems from
adrenal neoplasia.  It is also possible that an ovary was missed.
Hopefully, it just will take a little time for her hormonal levels to go
down and then all will be well, but if it continues consider those other
causes and look in the archives for the injections used to end estrus.
 
I hope that you discuss all of your concerns with the vet.
 
Amy wrote:
>And on the same subject, I saw mention to the NJ distemper incident a
>few years back that said that some ferrets had not been properly
>vaccinated.  I don't recall ever seeing a followup anywhere on that.
>Last I heard Dr. Williams was doing some tests to see if it was vaccine
>failure, failure to vaccinate, or a new distemper strain?
 
As I recall it was the usual simple failure to vaccinate often enough
with a type of vaccine shown to be effective in ferrets.
 
If the case near us (a DIFFERENT case) years ago is any indication,
there remains some protection for a year or maybe a bit more beyond
vaccination, but the protection can be low enough for brain damage
and very poor health to occur.
 
If there were a new distemper strain Bruce would have told me; he is
still a co-moderator on the FHL (though his schedule has prevented his
replying for a while) and we are friends so talk with each other on
everything from families, to hypotheses based on interesting observations
in a number of ferret health areas under recent study in several nations
(and not jumping too fast a la "cold fusion" but instead waiting for
enough proof while keeping an open mind), to all the rest of normal
chit-chat.  He has not -- not then and not now -- spoken of a new strain
being demonstrated.
 
Since that is conjecture on my part I'll ask him in a note and hope it
isn't lost in the rest of his too-profuse mail.
 
--Sukie
(This will interest some people here.  Despite the melatonin
connections FIRST being shown in humans (effects on levels of hormonal
outputs, effects on hormonal pathways, anti-oxidant properties) we in
the ferret community are more aware of the importance of darkness
because of the adrenal connection to too much light.  I was wondering
when people would begin thinking of studying any childhood malignancies
for a possible connection to night light use:
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?flok=FF-RTO-rohts&idq=/ff/
story/0002%2F20040908%2F0541682835.htm&sc=rohts   )
[Posted in FML issue 4630]