Hey... Well, our Freya definately has lymphoma (thank you Sukie and Dr. Williams for encouraging us to do the biopsy, I feel much better knowing what's going on in her bod...). She is unbeleivable! The first day at the vet's after surgery she managed to get her catheter (I think I spelled that wrong...) tangled around her 3 times and pulled it out once!! She also managed to capture the hearts of every tech in there (of course :) ). We brought her home to a modified open topped plastic storage bin, thinking she would be as sluggish after surgery as our 5 year old had been after his adrenal surgery. No such luck. The first thing she did was jump out (the girl has stitches from sternum to belly button and she clambers over 18 inches of plastic to look around!!!). So while Robert kept her subdued, I ran out and bought a little recovery cage - the vet wants us to keep her "quiet" til the stitches come out. Wooo, grumpy ferret! So now we have four cages. Two downstairs with the 3 ece/grumpy tummy/coccidea, god knows what kids, and 2 upstairs with Ms. heathy and Ms. heathy recovering from surgery!! More bad news Spawn - who caught whatever tummy nasty it is from Strider, our rescue, is not doing so well. We have him on carafate (thanks to the person who wrote in and mentioned it, I appreciate it!!) to help with the nausea, but he's still lost quite a bit of weight. We've known he was going to go for a while, he's had both adrenals out, and at the time of the second surgery, the vet saw tons of little tumors throughout his organs. That was a year ago. He's been doing okay, but this illness has kicked his butt. His hind legs are weakening, and he doesn't want to eat. He still likes to run around, but he does a lot of the flat ferret resting to take a break. I guess I'm writing all of this to remind people, even if the new kid has been to the vet, quarantine it for a minimum of 3 weeks so you can get a decent perspective on the kid's health. I didn't (against my husband's wishes mind you) and my Spawn is wasting away. Now, off of that subject, and on to meanderings about ferrets surviving in the wild. I was watching Strider last night as we were playing with this spectacular new cat toy from petco. A fishing pole, with attatched fish that you can cast and reel in!!! Besides delighting their mom to no end (Woo-hoo, look at how far I cast that one honey!!) the kids love it. At this point I challenge California Fish and Wildlife to come over and watch my "predator" attempt to catch his fish. Every time he gets seriously involved in attacking the fish, he has itchy fits!! He has to stop, scratch, and then attack if the fish is still there, then he has to scratch again, and again!!! My Freya does the same thing! Very intent, then "Oh, man I've just gotta scratch my belly, now!!" These ferrets are seldom itchy till it comes to "big hunt". Then it's all over! Can you imagine these kids in the wild!?!?!?! "Oooo, look at that nice, juicy squirrel, just a little bit- aaaaigh, gotta itch!!" Although maybe that's a technique all it's own, maybe the squirrel falls over laughing at the sight of this vicious predator having an itchy fit, and gets caught cause it can't get back up, of course that may lead to more scratching... Hmmm - maybe fish and wildlife does have a point - that's a terrifying hunting technique! <lol> Mary & Robert Furparents to Spawn, Freya, Trinity, Artemis, and Strider [Posted in FML issue 3304]