I know I don't post much but I am passing on the story of my loss to try and help others. First I must say I have come to understand the only equal to the joy ferrets bring to our lives; is the sadness when they are gone. Monday I took my Black Sable boy Raistlin to have a exploratory surgery. I highly suspected he was adrenal even though his tail was still nice and full. A recent X-ray showed a abnormal area just above his bladder. Looking back I have long suspected Raistlin to have something going on in his belly. He had a strange habit of running to the papers or box, getting ready to potty. He would do nothing take off, make a big circle and come back. Sometimes do this twice before going potty. He always seemed to have normal stools and urine. I took him almost 2 years ago to our state vet college to investigate things like this and rather puffy areas in his neck (lymph nodes). They ran several tests and said he was fine, nothing was apparently wrong. Over time A couple other small Q's told he was just not himself. But trips to my vet never revealed anything. It became easy to say it was most all related to what I felt was adrenal problems. Monday my vet went in and found his left Adrenal glad to be quite large and almost hemorrhagic. He was able to remove it and explore the areas of the X-ray concern. He felt he had done a good job. The first few hours went by very well. Raist was willing to eat and drink on his own. Then at 4:45 am I woke to sound of him trying to vomit. I noticed he was a little dehydrated. I gave him soup and lots of Pedalite fluid. 8 am we went to the vet and he got some subQ fluid. HE also received a second shot of Antibiotics. I returned before the vet closed for more fluid because he had become unwilling to eat or drink. That night at 9pm he began to paw at his face and gag violently. We returned to the vet. No sign of bleeding, alert ,so more fluids and a little pain meds. Raistlin stayed quite ill all night. I noticed he had stopped passing any stool even though I would not have expected much at this point. His belly was getting hard and swollen. We returned to the vet first thing and he went back to the operating table. Our vet found his small intestine to be on the verge or exploding. Full of gas and fluid. He traced back the intestine and could find no abnormalities. He was very puzzled why this was happening. He did not feel there was any real hope for recovery. The normal antibiotics that would have fought this sort of thing had been given and had no effect. Plus his insides were all ready in so much trouble. I asked him not to wake him. He had been in so much pain all ready, I could not bear the idea of him dieing slow and miserable. I asked him to relive the gas /fluid pressure so he could close him and I could bring him home. When he did he found something wedged in the stomach area where a small valve leads into the large intestine. He removed it. It appeared to be very old black electric tape that had curled. It had wedged it self into that small opening. In Raist's weak state this foreign object finally struck it's blow. It made a huge explosion of bacteria that attacked his intestine. If only I had known, the vet could have removed it at the time of the first surgery. Raist would be fine now. Not gone forever. Raist had been in 1 home before us. More than likely he has had this object since I got him. Always floating around causing small problems. But since his blood work, appetite, voiding, stool passing and X-rays never saw this silent killer, he is gone. If you feel something is wrong with your pet or family member. MAKE the vet or Dr. look into it. Keep hounding them NO matter how paranoid you might sound. We live with them. WE know when they are sick. I am just devastated. He was my second ferret. He was always gentle and sweet. He was on the Valentine cards I sent out on the card exchange. He is so badly missed and forever loved. He was only 3-4 years old. He learned to dook with us. Ladyhawk-Kris [Posted in FML issue 5274]