In honor of the 3000th issue, I want to tell you of another special little man in my life. Back in January of this year, I fostered a 6.5 year old silver male named Spaz. He came to me with a nasty looking sore on his side that looked like he had been burned. From what I understand, his owner thought he had been bitten by a dog... they never sought medical treatment. Instead they chose to surrender him. After three days, the shelter director, called to tell me the bad news. It turns out that from the biopsy taken from his sore, Spaz had lymphosarcoma. She told me she was so sorry to do this to me again... as Squeegie was a foster who turned out to have cancer. My heart sank, but I felt that I had to arm myself with knowledge in order to deal with this new situation. But firstly, we had to deal with healing the sore from the outside first. This would at least give him some comfort. Between the end of January and the beginning of March, we managed to get rid of the lesions. We did this by bandaging the area for the day with various creams, and exposing it to the air at night. We used a self stick bandage that made him look like an athlete... all that was missing was his head band. We could tell that he was feeling better over time, as he began leaping from the bed to the chair, and he was actively chasing and harassing the other ferrets. He even slept on his sore side. My research did not turn up much. It turns out that Spaz had a rare form of skin lymphosarcoma and the only documentation on file talked of a ferret on chemo therapy. The shelter could not afford to take this course of action. So, shuffling all our money around in creative ways, we decided that we would adopt Spaz and then look after his medical needs. With the help of Dr. Bruce Williams, a course of action was finally decided: Spaz needed surgery to remove the cancerous site entirely. My vet felt that he could not do the surgery properly, so he asked a cancer specialist to see Spaz and assess what could be done. Dr. David Szentimrey was absolutely wonderful with Spaz. After a small biopsy was taken to rule out that Spaz's cancer could be elsewhere, and an x-ray taken, a date was set for surgery. I was allowed to view the surgery and am very thankful for the rare opportunity. He made it look simple and straight forward. He allowed me to take photos too. The surgery went smoothly and Spaz came out of it just fine. Even at 6.5 years old... I knew he was strong enough to pull through surgery.. and he did. I am still awaiting the pathology report but am extremely hopeful that this will be the end of this matter for Spaz... In the likelihood that it did not, we are still hopeful that we at least extended Spaz's life... even if only for a short time. Spaz is very special... he is a kisser and a cuddler. He loves to have his face and neck scratched, as well as the backs of his legs. He is so good that I find it hard to believe that his owner could just give him up in the blink of an eye, but then I think, maybe they knew that someone might just be able to do for him what they could not... If you would like to see Spaz, and the site before surgery click here. http://EikonDesignsStudio.tripod.com/SpazBefore/SpazBefore/index.html If you have a strong stomach and wish to see the surgery photos, click here. http://EikonDesignsStudio.tripod.com/SpazSurgery/index.html Special thanks to Dr. Brian Jesmer, who continues to keep a watchful eye on this special little guy... Betty and Her Blur O'Fur Missing Squeegie [Posted in FML issue 3000]