Hi. I have sad news to report. Unfortunately, my little Sparkle girl passed away yesterday-I am devastated. I knew she was really sick, but I never thought she'd die yesterday! When she first came to us, in addition to all her other problems, we noted that she had a very brief episode of heavy breathing, almost panting, but it was not acute and did not last for more than a few seconds, and occurred rarely over the course of her treatment here according to the old owner and my own observations in living with her for a week and spending all my spare time with her and bringing her to work with me every day. (She was our patient for a few months before I rescued her)-seemed to be a stress reaction. Monday night at home she started having very heavy breathing consistently, and couldn't seem to get into a comfortable position, to the point where she rearranged herself every few minutes and would not eat much, even when I hand-fed her. Yesterday morning my doctors examined her and suspected pleural effusion (fluid in her lungs) and we got an x-ray. She got really stressed out while we were taking an x-ray and she went into severe respiratory distress, gasping for air, and then stopped breathing and lost a heart rate. Despite the long and great effort of our staff, we couldn't revive her. I am really sad right now. We had already sent out more bloodwork so we could have as much information as possible, and were still awaiting the results (we were going to do her surgery today if all was normal). The breathing issue really kind of developed almost out of nowhere as a major issue, and the x-rays showed her as having almost no lungs!!! I still haven't gotten to sit down with my doctors to discuss her x-ray findings, but apparently, it is incredible that she made it this far without showing much in the way of symptoms; her previous symptoms certainly didn't suggest pleural effusion. I am so upset right now-I was not prepared for such a sudden death, and I feel awful because she died terrified, not being able to breathe after being held down on the x-ray table, which no ferret likes. She had given me about a thousand kisses just before we x-rayed her... We will be sending out a lymph node for biopsy to get a better idea of the situation; a full post-mortem seemed a bit much for this poor little girl's body when so much of her disease was obvious on x-ray and through other tests. (Incidentally, she was ADV-negative.) I want to thank everyone who sent kind words and money towards her care. I especially want to thank Joanna, Alicia and Mary, for offering homes for Sparkle, Jaime, Kerry and Aida, Leanne, Dan, Muna and Joanna again for sending money towards her care. You are all so wonderful-everyone at my hospital thinks so-they thought you were special people to help a sick baby you didn't even know. I will be having Sparkle cremated and keeping her with me-I couldn't bear the idea of her being alone. She and Renate will have each other at the Bridge. Sandee, please send my little Renate to meet Sparkle-they had so much in common, and were both such sweet little girls. Even though I only had Sparkle for a week and Renate for five months, they mean so much to me, and I am glad to have known and loved them. I hope the brief duration of Sparkle's time with me doesn't discourage anyone from helping in the future. I plan to take in whatever little babies I can that need me while I work at the hospital. Thanks again, you wonderul FMLers. What a great group of angels. Dooks, April Armstrong [Posted in FML issue 3777]