It's almost 6 a.m. and we just returned from an emergency trip to the vet
with Mitzy.  When I came home from work, shortly after 2 a.m. the older
ferrets were still out.  Wayne had gone to bed and left them out, which we
often do.  This cage is much calmer since they are all older.  They don't
climb much or get into much trouble anymore.  Anyway, I went looking for
them to put them to bed and when I found Mitzy her eye was bulging out and
had dry blood all around it and it looked hard and crusty.  Her little body
tensed up when I picked her up .  I guess she hurt big time.  I woke Wayne
up and asked him if anything had happened.  She is a scrapper and I
wondered if she had been in a fight with one of the other ones in another
cage.  She tends to torment them through the bars of the cage and every
once in awhile, someone ends up getting bitten.  Wayne said he wasn't aware
of any fights and she was fine when he went to bed.  I called my vet's
emergency pager and she called me back within 10 minutes.  We left and made
the 45 min trip to the vet.  Dr. Cathy put her out and tried to push the
eyeball back into the socket.  She was pretty sure it was too late to save
the sight in the eye, but was hopeful she could save the eye.  The eye was
just too swollen to push back in or to get the eyelids closed over enough
to suture it in place.  She spent the better part of an hour trying, and
finally gave up.  Mitzy will undergo surgery in a couple of hours to remove
the eye.  We are hoping that there is no tumor behind it.  Dr. Cathy said
it is most likely that she banged her eye really badly on something and is
pretty sure that if it was a tumor, we would have seen signs of swelling
gradually and not all of a sudden like that.  Dr. Cathy gave Mitzy a shot
of Baytril to prevent infection and gave her a shot for pain and to keep
her relaxed.  She looked comfortable enough when we left her, but her eye
looked awful.  I cried all the way home.  I wish she could tell me what
happened.
 
Moxy goes down at 4:15 p.m. for her lupron shot, and Dr. Cathy hopes if
all goes well, we will be able to bring Mitzy home with us then.
 
I hope all goes well.  I know I will have a very difficult time trying to
sleep.  I can't get the image of her eye out of my mind.  I'll sign off for
now.Your prayers for my poor little girl will be gratefully accepted.
 
Sally St. Germain and her 12 "Little Saints."
Hi.....my name is Sally.....I am a ferret-a-holic!!!!!
[Posted in FML issue 2993]