Our 11 month old female ferret "Helix" died from lymphosarcoma yesterday.
In the event that it can help anyone, here are the details:
 
About 3 weeks ago she started coughing. We thought she had a bad case of
furballs as she responded to Petromalt treatments. During one of her
spasms she started having problems with her rear legs. We immediately went
to the local vet who took xrays (we wondered if she managed to hurt herself
coughing at that point). The xray of her rear quarters showed a small spot
on her spine - he felt that it may be a tumor and treated her with cortisone.
 
The cortisone treatments showed an immediate improvement. Within a few days
she returned to her normal "hell on 4 wheels" mode of operation (she was
far and away the most athletic ferret we've had). All appeared well and
we thought the nightmare was over.
 
Last Sunday the stiffness in her rear legs re-appeared rapidly turning to
paralysis by early Monday morning. At this point we started to search for
other help and it became clear that our vet may have not looked far enough.
In particular it was suggested by Mark Burgess (of this newsgroup) that
lymphosarcoma was possible as year old ferrets are at a hot age for this
(like 7 years olds and leukemia). Sukie started calling everyone she could
to get help (our vet would not open her up for surgery, which he felt was
necessary - he thought it was a localized bump on the spine). Along with
several people from this newsgroup (many thanks to all!) UFO - the United
Ferret Organization - was very helpful trying to locate local vets with
higher levels of expertise. (I highly recommend joining that group. They
have a newsletter and much enthusiasm. With people contributing useful
comments it could turn into a very valuable source of information).
 
By Tuesday night her hind quarters were completely paralyzed. We finally
found the Animal Medical Center in NYC. [if you are in the NE this is
supposedly one of the best facilities in the US] We were scheduled for
an appointment on Thursday with one of their 3 exotic specialists. An
xray was taken and it was clear that she had cancer. She was not in much
pain and the lead vet said that a treatment may be possible, although it
had not been attempted on a ferret at this point. We had a long chat and
decided to go ahead with the treatment for a variety of reasons until
she was in pain (no flames here - this was extremely agonizing for both of
us).
 
By Friday her condition had deteriorated to the point where the paralysis
was spreading to her front quarters. She was having problems breathing and
things were changing hourly. We had no choice and asked that she be given
some cream when they put her to sleep.
 
Should you ever need the services of the Animal Medical Center here are
the particulars:
 
        The Animal Medical Center
        510 East 62nd Street
        NY  NY  10021
        212-838-7053
 
        we had Drs Quesenberry and Hoefer
 
Steve and Sukie Crandall
att!mhuxt!evans
 
[Our sympathies.
 
When you consider that there's something like 35-50 ferrets represented by
their owners in this mailing list, and that Helix is the second within 7
months (our Toby died in April) with lymphosarcoma, it's somewhat
frightening.  I sure hope that there is some research going on on this.]
                                                                          
[Posted in FML 0037]