My ferret, Dala, had her left kidney removed today. She was scheduled for right adrenal cryo-surgery today because of adrenal disease symptoms (the left one was removed last year successfully). When the vet opened her up and took a look, he initially thought the left kidney was missing. Upon further examination, he found a small (size of a kidney bean) mass. He dissected the tissue after removing it and said it appeared to be the kidney, but it is about 90% smaller than the right kidney. On this suspect kidney is a mass of tissue that is about two times the size of the kidney. He could not tell what type of tissue this was, but he thinks there is a possibility that it might be adrenal tissue. I was present during her left adrenal surgery last year and the vet showed me all of her major organs and never commented that her left kidney was abnormal. She also had radiographs last year by a different vet and he did not see anything abnormal on the film (we were looking for a possible blockage). Dala is about 4 years old and female. She had her left adrenal and part of her pancreas removed October 2003. She has been on 0.5 mg of Prednisolone daily for her insulinoma for over a year now, which has successfully controlled her blood glucose in a healthy range. We believe she might be blind or going blind. The kidney/tissue sample is being sent to a lab to be analyzed. Hopefully it will yield some idea as to what went wrong. I have not been able to find any information on the internet that describes these conditions. If anyone has any ideas to what might have caused the left kidney to shrink, please contact me (through FML or e-mail). Thanks, Leann Freeman [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 4695]