Hey everyone! Two weeks ago, I wrote in asking for advice about my ferret Snowball, who was going in for adrenal surgery. Our first surgery in five years of ferret ownership. (I was pretty nervous). Well, here's an update! She had her surgery on Monday. From what I understand, they freeze the adrenal gland to stop it from working. Dr. Koffman discovered that Snowball has an abnormality. One of the ventricles from her heart wraps around the adrenal gland. Now it's nothing life threatening, but it made her uncomfortable with freezing the entire gland, in fear that if there was the slightest slip, it could freeze part of her heart, killing her instantly. As a result, only 2/3rds of the gland were put out of commission. She equated it with a sponge. If you cut 2/3rds off a sponge, it would still work, but it would only work 1/3 as well. She said that two years ago, when vets cut the adrenal gland out, they were only able to remove 2/3rds . She said if it didn't work, we'd talk about what to do from there. So Snowball came home on Wednesday. Boy, were her brother and sister happy to see her. Baby suddenly developed a fascination for licking poor Snowball's ears. Sympathy? Besides that, they acted perfectly normal towards each other. She was only able to play for about 10 minutes at a time. She was out of whack and off-balance (from the drugs?) until about Friday. On Sunday, we put her back into her home with the other two. Yesterday, I brought her in for a follow-up visit. The vet said she looks GREAT! The texture of her coat has changed tremendously. It went from feeling like under conditioned, brittle hair to soft and furry again. And under the fluorescent lights, we could see hundreds of little hairs sprouting through!!!! YAY! I'm praying to Saint Jude like crazy that all is well. He's never let me down yet. Well, thanks to everyone who wrote with advice. I learned some great tips, that helped a lot! It's nice to know that there is such a place as FML where the clueless (me) can get support through hard times. Thanks everyone! Love, Julie & Her Bubbas http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/Park/2037/BubbaLand.html [Posted in FML issue 3667]