To all who have lost a furkid, my sincere condolences.
 
Cinnamon and Sam (now known as Samwise Gamgee) came to us in October of
2002.  Got a call from a man who wanted to find a new home for his
fuzzies, and the first question I asked was why?  He was putting in new
carpeting, didn't want it ruined.  My husband and I went to his house
and we must have been there for over 2 hours talking.  The man told me
that he'd had many offers from people to take them, but I'd said
something in our firsT conversation that he knew I was the correct
person.  While we were talking two ferrets were bounding around, trying
to get through the blocked off area, into the area being worked on.  He
said that Cinnamon had bitten him once, and he'd thrown her across the
room-she never bit him again.
 
Yeah, right.  I was almost twitching with that remark.  He did love them,
though; you could see it in his face.  He was almost in tears when we
left.  I told him to stop and see them, had explained as they were older
they might suffer from depression, and he said if that happened, he'd
work something out with them at his home.  When we left, Cinni and Sam
came with us.  I can't even remember what he'd been feeding them, except
that as a treat they got dog food-red dyed dog food.  I got them home,
got rid of the bedding they were on, as it smelled so strongly of
cigarettes, changed their water and mixed their food with ours.  The next
day the man and his daughter (who was visiting for the weekend) stopped
by to see them.  Cinnamon and Sam gave him a cursory glance, and went
back to what they were doing, finding out they could play and nibble, be
ferrets.  We never heard from the man again.
 
The two melded into our group perfectly, you'd never have known they
hadn't been with us for all their lives.  One day while playing, Cinnamon
put a good grip on my hand, watching to see what I'd do, and I just said,
okay, no bite.  She let go and went bounding off.  She loved to play with
golf balls.  You'd hear this rumble through the kitchen, see her rolling
one through the kitchen, delighted little look on her face.  A year ago
in April Dee Gage and I worked a pet fair in Huntington, and we took
ferrets.  Cinnamon was one that went from the Crew, and she was such a
lady.  She'd kiss people, let them admire her, was just a little love.
She let my oldest great-nephew hold her, play with her.  It took them a
while to learn they could mouth us, put their teeth on us to play and
nobody would scold or hit them.  I called Cinnamon "Cinniniminmon" as a
pet name, and it seemed bigger than she was!  Both Cinnamon and Sam loved
their chicken gravy.
 
She'd started slowing down in the last few months, sleeping a lot, and I
figured it was age, because she had to be somewhere around 6, maybe a bit
older.  Not quite two weeks ago we noticed she'd lost some weight, and
wasn't eating well, and then she suddenly developed the runs.  We put
her in a cage by herself, started medicating her.  Our little Ghost had
the runs, too, and she suddenly had a prop lapse.  We got her 'purse
stitched' to make it go back in, and then suddenly Cinnamon had one,
buther runs had gotten worse, a black tar/syrupy form.  Larry started
giving her subq's; I was making her eat chicken gravy.  We took her
to our vet, and he had to purse string her, and he gave us
metoclopromazol(sp) for her runs.  One night we put Sam in with her,
as we felt part of her sudden onset of depression was separation from
him.  I looked in on them, and he was curled around her, paw over her
shoulders, but her runs got worse and I knew they couldn't stay in the
same cage.  Her purse string came out and the vet thought it looked
great, but two days later it was back.  He showed Larry how to put it
back, as I was at work, but then he told me how to do it also.  Last
Friday I was working with her, and it was out again.  We put it back,
but in the morning she was all bruised there, and where Larry had put
in the needle for the sub-q's, it was also bruised.  Her runs hadn't
slowed down, and beside the medicine from the vet he had me giving her
Kaopectate.  Saturday, 2/28, she ate well for me, had been drinking water
well.  At noon she ate 6 cc's of food, cleaned herself.  I went to feed
her at 4pm, and I knew she was leaving us.  She had clamped her jaws, and
was growing cold.  I'd been telling her all along about the Bridge, but
begging her to get better.  But now I knew I couldn't save her, neither
of us could.  So I sat and held her, talked toher, tried to warm her.  I
told her all about the Bridge, how wonderful it was, and that the other
19 members of the Crew would be there to meet her.  I called my vet, and
he told me to try to keep her warm, and that if she left, he wanted to
do a post, as he was worried there was somethingcontagious going on.  I
had Larry hold her for me, and I got the rice sock he made me warm.  I
wrapped that in a blanket, tucked her into her hammock.  She raised her
head and bumped my hand, as if to say, it's all right mom, I'm going to
be all right.  I had to leave for a little while, and honestly thought
about putting her under my shirt, but I knew she wasn't comfortable.
When we got home I went upstairs, but I already knew, and she was gone.
I held her poor little body and talked to her, eventhough I knew her
spirit had been set free.  Our vet did her necropsy, and she had
pancreatic carcinoma, it had gone into her lungs and throughout her
intestines.  He said it was like brush strokes throughout her body.  I
spoke with Dr. Williams, and he said this is extremely rare.  My vet
told me there was nothing we could have done to have saved her.
 
Sandee and Sara-ferret, I know she came to the Bridge on the 28th, but
could you please check on her.  She's a beautiful, soft-coated pale
cinnamon, not champagne, though.  The other 19 members of the Crew will
be there, and I know Gandalf will love it, because he was one of her
cagemates.  Please tell her how much she's missed, how much we loved her.
I sat d with Sam, who had been looking for her, and talked to him, let
him smell her bed, and he seems to be doing all right-he has his other
cage mates.  This has taken so long to write, because we lost 4 of our
kids in February-4 of them.  I'm not sure how much I can take with that.
I've lost, at the most, 2 in a month, but never 4 before, and all to
different reasons.  I've told my other kids, you can't do anything for a
long time, none of you can leave, so don't get ill, please.  I just don't
think I can take another one right now.  This just hurts far too much.
Please tell Cinnamon how very much we miss her, and she'll never be
forgotten.
 
Rebecca & the Crew of Merry Mayhem
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy, and taste
 good with ketchup"
"Support bacteria, it's the only culture some people have"
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[Posted in FML issue 4444]