I'm wondering if anyone can help us diagnose what happened to our pet ferret Roman. We went to San Francisco over Christmas, and got our boys (Roman and Bart) back from the babysitter yesterday. In addition to fleas (which they didn't have before the trip), our 6 year old male, Roman had a hugely swollen abdomen. Roman had been slowing down over the past 6 months... to the point where he really didn't come out of his box much. The babysitter said everything was fine a day ago when he last got out. When I took him out of his box last night upon arriving home, his upper body was very very thin and his abdomen appeared to be full of fluid and was swollen many times normal size. Roman seemed calm and did not appear to be in pain, but it was obvious something was **VERY** wrong. The emergency vet didn't really have an idea what specifically was wrong with him, so to avoid any possible pain he might begin to feel, and knowing that his health had been going down hill for the past 6 months, we had him put to sleep last night. Not an easy thing to do, but we think the right thing to do. For future knowledge, we would appreciate any replies which might help explain what might have happened to him. A picture of him (after he died) can be found at: http://www.u2fdb.com/other/roman/roman.jpg It is somewhat hard to tell from this picture, but his abdomen was about 4 times normal size. Dan Eliot [Posted in FML issue 3648]