My girlfriend's ferret guy Al had an eye removed last year due to an
unknown injury.  Last week something similar happened to his *other* eye.
 
On Tuesday my girlfriend, Ramona, babysat for a friend's 2-yr-old.  The kid
*seemed* nice enough to the fuzzies at first, but Ramona went in to the
kitchen for only a minute, and when she came back into the living room, the
two ferrets were under the tree, hopping around, and the kid was *kicking*
at them!  Ramona put a stop to that *real* quick -- I don't think she'll be
doing any more babysitting.
 
She thought no more about it until Wednesday, when she noticed a white spot
on Al's eye.  That night it was spreading over the eyeball and ballooning
out -- just like before.  Apparently Al jabbed his eye on an artificial
pine needle or something.  She rushed Al to an emergency hospital and got a
prescription for some eyedrops that didn't help any.  Ramona spent a
sleepless night crying and worrying herself sick over her little boy
becoming blind.
 
Thursday we went to the vet that had removed Al's other eye last year and
he looked the little guy over, which he did not like (and they took his
temperature again, which he HATED -- I can't say as I blame him).  The
verdict was that the damage was not as bad as the previous time, and that
the eye *might* be saved.  They prescribed two sets of eyedrops (which he
doesn't like) and an antibiotic (which he loves) and did some sort of
quickie operation involving the third eyelid (I'm unclear on this --
perhaps they stretched it over the damaged eyeball).
 
Given Al's advanced age (about 9 from what Ramona says), the vet was
cautious enough that he did a blood test, and it's a good thing that he
did.  Apparently Al has insulinoma; his sugar level was 59.  Ramona had
noticed that he tired out easily while playing but had written it down to
old age.  No seizures that she had noticed.  So for now, while his eye
heals, she's supposed to feed him high-protein food to try and get his
blood sugar up; later we may have to see about medication.
 
Since then, Al is doing fairly well.  Ramona keeps him separate from his
cagemate Peggy, and he seems to be more or less back to normal with a
minimum of running into things.  We picked up a can of high-protein (?)
soft catfood at the vet's to help get his blood sugar up, but the problem
is that he refuses to eat it.  We'll probably have to mix up something like
duck soup for him, and it may come to force-feeding him, though I hope we
can find something good for him that he likes.
 
Ramona had her doubts about me discussing this here.  She's afraid that
she'll look like a "bad" ferret mommy.  I don't think so.  Something --
like a kid that doesn't know any better tor- menting some fuzzies -- can
happen so fast that we may not catch it in time.  If anything, I feel bad
that I didn't squawk about insulinoma earlier, but he didn't seem in too
bad a shape.  All I know is that this little guy has a Mommy -- and, yes, a
Daddy -- that loves him so very much.
 
Any advice would be appreciated.  Any flames will be ignored anyway, so
what's the point?
 
Paul E. Jamison, Esq.
 
--
 
"BABYLON 5!  A five-mile long cement mixer of truth, pouring out the
 Concrete of Nice-Nice in a long, grey ribbon into the future, to form a
 
               ***SIDE WALK OF JUSTICE!!***"
                                   - The Tick on Babylon 5
[Posted in FML issue 2896]