Sending these heartfelt wishes youre way. I missed the whole dang thing--- It was the New Year whe n shelter Dad popped in to say it's 2006-- I had found Gravy in decline at the time of his soup feeding & evening run so I had been down in the shelter working on him to give him yet another shot at life. Sigh This boy is on his 6th life now and I am praying he makes oit fr a while longer with quality. If any of you remember Gravy & his cagemate Biscuit arrived here in 2002- abandoned for a week in a deserted mobile home they were starved within hours of death. We received them from a police dept the officer who picked them up called us after the ferrets had been stabilized. It took a while but we got the two 3 -4 ish year olds fat & healthy. Gravy was clearly the worst with aggravated renal condition form dehydration. The about 18 mos later Gravy started vomiting a LOT- he also had stiff coat slightly thinning - so an exploratory was done removing massive hair from his gut, his very enlarged spleen and the left adrenal. Things went well for Gravy until about 8 mos later when the adrenal symptoms returned he was losing hair on his haunches and base of tail and rear feet-- so he has been on lupron first and now Melatonin implant & lupron, for the past 9 months. I noticed the past few days he was sleeping in a round bed on the first floor every day... Tonight I found out why- he has acute insulinoma and it took nearly 2 hours to bring him out of his coma like state to where he could swallow. He has been stabilized. Dosed with pred after being fed first nutrical and the soup. I thought that he might not even see the AM at first he was so slow to respond. AS I type he can motivate but is understandably very tired after 3-4 steps. Now on to Orion who though he does not have a fever did drastically lose half his body weight after admission / transfer. He will eat only chicken baby food when he is fed either off a spoon of if I hold the bowl for him. If I try to feed ground kibble in the chicken he spits it out and then stops eating. I had som success with Ensure for 2 days i addition to the chicken baby food but Orion has lost interest in that as well.Woe is me. I really did miss the New Year arriving -- but hope that soon I will get a little break to see what the daylight looks like. LOL! I send belated New Year wishes to all of you on the list- and send what little energy I have remaining to my co-shelterers who undoubtedly are dealing with similar issues with shelter kids. May the BNew Year bring us renewed energy, Happy ferret residents and a kinder , gentler world. Alicia D. www.ferretwise.org [Posted in FML issue 5109]