This is Susie Lee speaking for The Ferret And Dove Sanctuary's fur-folks. We nearly always have at least one (more often several, because of our large ferret-population of elderly and already-cancer-afflicted ferrets turned over to us) ferret who is plainly up against the clock and fighting with that durned clock over each tick and every minute just wanting to stick around to play One more day, or be able to snuggle in with their buddied ferrets one more night. The current ones who are in this corner (not unlike where Rocky is, in his own corner, winning another "round" with each new day...yeah you Know he pumps up his little ferret-hands with each new day! Go Rocky!) are Nala Bubble-Bubbles, who has several kinds of cancer, including damag to her liver, making her look SO pale when she's sleeping, lately, that you have to look to see if she's breatheing...Yet she strains to lick each of us and to groom and lick at the faces and fur of each of her four other cage-mate buddies every day she's here. Nala Bubble-Bubbles wants so patently Much to stay near her buddies and give kissies to each of us that we simply can not just go and have her euthanized unless she starts showing us she's in any pain or shows us she's uncomfortable. Yet, once a person's liver begins to go, there's not really a lot of time left to live with. Another one has been RazzmaTazz Dazzle, whom we first were introduced to more than 6 years ago as a found stray, referred to us by our local Humane Society chapter. We looked after this little lady lightning bolt of energy for just over a month before she found herself an adoptive owner who kept her for nearly 6 years, but then Razzy developed insulinoma and the adoptor's work-schedule kept her from being on-time with food and meds for the treatment of it so that RazzmaTazz came back to us to stay. We took her to a vet who had ultrasound and other modern equipment who diagnosed Five kinds of cancer in Razzy, including lymphoma, a golf-ball-sized abdominal tumor, and recurrent skin melanomas, of which she's going back in this Monday to have yet another skin growth nicked off at the vets' before it balloons into something she can't handle on top of her plateful. Yet with five kinds of cancer, the ol' RazzmaTazz is patently UNready to call quits to anything, so we won't call quits on her until she "says" so...which, from her always-has-been-feisty, if also friendly nature, might be never. She and one of her buddies, Nala Bubble-Bubbles, are among those who show us they'd rather pass on through the Veil at home, "in their own bed" (so-to-speak), so that if this is at all possible, and they neither one display signs of either pain or overt discomfort, we're inclined to let them stick together for whatsoever time they have, enjoying their buddies' company and each new day that they, like Rocky, have "won" their latest Life Championship rounds in, lately. And we have no doubts but that each is Winner and Champion of each day they make their fights to stick around...we humans are only their "managers"...so as long as these super-spirited ferrets are fighting their own ills so valiantly, and show us they Want to stick around, it seems actually craven of us to throw in the towel for them while they're still on their feet and ...ehhh, dooking it out. [Posted in FML issue 4878]