Well, it looks like it was Scooter's malformed stomach that took him. His last (fourth) stomach surgery was only 4 and 1/2 months ago and at that point it was already taking him over 10 hours to empty his stomach, motility was that bad. On necropsy he was again full of fur-balls (after the one he'd passed intestinally), he was fully blocked, and his stomach was full of blood and terribly distended. Joe thinks that he may have lost motility completely or at least it worsened even more. He had what may be an insulinoma, too, but he had not shown any insulinoma symptoms till that night. Joe (our vet, Joe Martins of the Bellemead A.H. in NJ) said it really was time, that he didn't think that a fifth stomach surgery, esp. this close to the last, would have given him much, if any, time. That malformation just finally caught up with him. Scooter was our little guy who came here with deformities and had to go through 6 surgeries due to them. He's one of the little ones whose situation caused us to sew covers over fake sheep's fleece and over fake fur on the bedding. Joe went the extra mile; he came here after midnight in a storm which made the roads slick, a drive which takes about an hour in good weather, arranging for the other vet to cover in the meantime, since he was on call at the hospital, and we set up emergency care on the dining room table, with IV hanging from the candleabra, and us helping place the IV catheter (which was hard, given Tootie's low blood pressure but with a cut-down it worked on the first try), and so on. We brought out a folding cage and left the top open for his IV and the door (large) toward us so the set-up was perfect for him, at least. It's just that his body didn't have a chance any longer. At the end he just wanted to be held and that is how he passed, in my arms. I wanted to wait before I said what happened because we needed to know what he looked like at necropsy, but both of the times Joe tried to tell us he was interrupted by emergency surgeries, so we learned today, which is only right. The information for us could wait, but the animals in need could not. Pathology is being done, of course. Maybe both Scooter and Sevie have things to teach which will help other ferrets, Scooter with his malformation, and Sevie, having lasted 7 good months with her Level 3 A/V Heart Node Block. [Posted in FML issue 4045]