On eating crow and ferret angels....
 
This last Saturday Ginger died.  She had stopped eating, and I thought
that the Totally Ferret food that she refused to eat was the cause of her
starvation.  Well, she may have stopped eating a little earlier because of
the off flavor, but the TF was NOT the cause of her death.  She was being
starved from within by a massive tumor.  I was feeding her duck soup, and
she rallied for about seven days, but this last Friday I realized that she
was eating less and less, even when I went back to syringe feeding.  Also,
the fluid in her belly was getting worse, not better.  Friday night she was
having trouble breathing.  On Saturday, we took her to the vet, and she did
what I had been afraid to do--she palpitated Ginger's abdomen, and told me
she felt a massive two lobed tumor inside her.  The tumor was inoperable,
because of its location, and because she was too weak.  We helped her over
the bridge.  She was so far gone at that point that she died from the shot
of anesthesia that was given to her so she wouldn't feel the euthanasia
shot.  She breathed three times after falling asleep and then breathed no
more.
 
She had stopped eating because she didn't feel well, and in fact, was
already dying.  I should know better--I've been taught that correlation
DOES NOT always equal causation.  It was just a coincidence that the bad TF
came out when she was failing, and I apologize for my presumption that I
truly knew what was going on.  The only thing that makes me feel a little
better is that I don't have to bear the guilt anymore of not noticing her
not eating bad food and letting her starve.
 
This has been a crappy week.  As well as diarrhea of the mouth, and jumping
to conclusions that I shouldn't have, I've lost two ferrets.  Frisky died
on Thursday, July 27, and Ginger on Saturday July 29.  The elven eleven has
now become the nifty nine.
 
Ginger came to us in November of 1999.  She had been kept in a cage on top
of the fridge and fed Friskie's cat food.  She had lost most of the hair on
her body, and had a fluid filled belly from malnutrition.  After feeding
her by hand with kibble, water, cream, ferretvite and ferritone for several
months, she realized that what she liked in her soup was what what in the
food dish.  Over the next few months, she gained stamina from playing with
our other ferrets, and even grew hair.  I like to think that she had 8
months of living how a ferret deserves to live, with love, fun, and good
food.  She will be missed.
 
Frisky was diagnosed with cancer in March.  We decided to help him with
supportive feedings of duck soup because it gave him the energy to still
play and get around and enjoy what life he had left.  I said that the time
he turned his head away from the duck soup would be the time he was telling
us it was time for him to go.  On Wednesday night, he turned away.  He
spent most of the night in a coma, not really responding to us, although
at 5:00 AM he took a little water.  I stayed up with him in case he went
into a seizure from low blood sugar--in that case I would have rushed him
to the emergency vet.  We took him into the vets on Thursday morning, and
she was amazed at the size of the tumor--that he had survived this long.
She administered gas, and he went to sleep while I was holding him, and
then after he was out, she administered the shot.  He will be cremated with
his feather boa that he loved to roll up and take a nap in.  He was 1st
place in a best dressed contest where he wore a father and son getup like
his father (matching life vests and hats like Mike wears in the Coast Guard
Auxiliary).
 
Melodyt and the nifty nine
Missing Ginger and Frisky
[Posted in FML issue 3130]