Ever wake up only to wish it was yesterday? Last month, Minnie Moose was diagnosed (via symptoms) as in the early stages of adrenal disease (typical hair loss, swollen vulva and nipples, aggressive) and was scheduled for surgery Thursday (yesterday). As I was bundling her up for surgery, I noticed Bear limping by. Not one to ignore a limp, I picked him up only to discover his left front paw was double normal size, angry red and looking like it was about to pop. Not 24 hours earlier he was sleeping on my lap and nothing was wrong with the foot (I give my guys foot rubs....really. They love it). So now two fur pops are going to the vet. Minnie underwent surgery and came through with flying colors, although she was a bit cool too long for my tastes. She didn't have adrenal disease after all, but instead she had a massive ovarian-like tumor on what stump was left after being spayed. The rest of her organs appeared normal, but we are having the tumor tested anyway to make sure we know exactly what it was. Hopefully, she will recover and live a long healthy life. Bear is a different matter. We ruled out scabies, and suspect Bear got a bite while playing or something and it is just an infection. So we are giving him a triple whammy of antibiotics to see how the foot responds. We also took a very tiny bit of tissue just to see what we could see, but won't know the results for a few days. In the meantime, the little monkey is riding in the sick sack, with ol' Bob checking the foot every hour to make sure it has adequate blood flow. Complicating everything is between the stress of having so much fun in Toronto, then coming back and writing some serious papers, I've managed to get a nasty little sore throat, probably due to the steroids I take. So not only do I have that steroid bloated head I am so proud of, BUT I also have a thick neck to match it. Oh fun. Elizabeth is calling me Bobby Churchen-Necker. My head feels as big as Ted Koppel's. I'll be eating liquids for a couple of days. Portland people; Sam Luc is not doing well. In the last few weeks, I've had to start twice daily feedings to keep his weight up, but he is not doing the winter plump the rest of the goon squad are doing. He is not tolerating the loss of Fraggle very well, and I keep him in the Sick Sack when I am home so he gets lots of attention. I'm hoping this is just a temporary depression which he will work out of, but I fear age is creeping up on him. He is such a sweet little guy, and both I and my vets are trying to keep him going. While he lost a lot of weight, at least it's stable at the moment. Poor little guy. And to top the entire day off, I came home from the vet to find a bookshelf toppled over with books and papers everywhere. Apparently a peg sheered off from the weight of the books, and the entire shelf collapsed. Thank God no ferrets were around when it happened, but I have to admit I had a very queasy stomach and a feeling of deep dread; I had checked noses and came up with one short, which I was convinced was under the ton of books. I started to tear into the "biblio-pile" when I remembered Minnie Moose was in the hospital cage. I have so many books, and they weigh so much I have tossed my wooden shelving and turned to those heavy duty steel Gorilla racks. I had a single wood bookshelf left, slated to be replaced next month, but will now have to move the replacement up a few weeks. Of course, the ferrets had a grand time playing king of the hill and a single book had a suspicious brown stain on it, but all in all, I think I got off lucky. The worst part is the top two shelves held photocopies of ferret references, and now they are jumbled and hopelessly mixed up. I'm just glad I made it to Friday. Sam! The Tui helped! ;-) Bob C and 15 Mo' Bibliopile Poopers [Posted in FML issue 3190]