i lost my sascha-bean at 10:40 sunday morning. this is very long, and you all may not want to read it, but i feel i need to tell his story, now that the end, the final chapter, has finally just been written. i've not had the strength to do this until now. *************************************************************** day 1 (wednesday,november 21): i wake and find sascha lethargic, not eating, and realize belatedly he's lost a lot of weight, more than what i'd attributed to just autumn (say, blowing his coat in prep for winter). the bit of banana i usually give all 3 of them barely warranted a sniff from him. he normally gobbles his down and fights max and pixie for theirs. so, not a good sign. i rush him to his regular vet. nothing obvious found, maybe ulcers. he prescribed amoxi/carafate/reglan and duck soup by hand; as much as i can get him to eat and drink. vet will be closed for thanksgiving until following monday. figures. bring him back then and we'll look at xrays, bloodwork, ultrasound, the usual suspects. day 2 (thanksgiving) after a fruitless night of trying to get sascha to eat by hand and him throwing it right back up, almost projectile vomiting, along with grinding his teeth, i call an emergency vet recommended by another local ferret-vet; i've never been there, to see about a barium x-ray, which may reveal a blockage not found otherwise. they say they don't generally perform them on ferrets, but bring him in and they'll be happy to take a look at him. so i reluctantly take him to the emergency vet. regular x-rays seemingly show nothing remarkable to the doctor present, so they want to keep him overnight on IV fluids and show the x-rays to the surgeon the next day. day 3: still not eating/throwing up what they try to feed him, still on fluids, and now having black tarry stools; still maybe ulcers? surgeon looks at x-rays, sees nothing remarkable to him; wants an ultrasound. fine. ultrasound shows nothing more than a possible dilated loop of his duodenum; or something *on* his duodenum. suggests exploratory surgery with biopsies as only chance to find anything definitive. at this point they haven't ever been able to get a blood draw to do bloodwork; his veins were too collapsed. i agree to surgery as it seems the only thing that may save him/find what's wrong. if he doesn't die during surgery, whatever is wrong will kill him soon...there's not much left to this poor little guy, but he's hanging in there; not giving up. he vomited up everything they tried to feed him right before surgery, about 5cc's all at once. not good. surgery performed ~5pm, removed a node from his duodenum, took biopsies of his duodenum, GI tract, stomach, liver, but otherwise, found nothing. *sigh* he actually lived thru the surgery; by no means a minor miracle in his weakened state. day 4: went to see him in the afternoon, anthropomorphically bringing a get-well card from max and pixie and a remnant of their blanket so it will smell like home. he's pretty pitiful-looking, wrapped in a blanket to keep him warm. he's been quiet, hypothermic, still vomiting, with tarry stools interspersed with frank blood. might be just because of the surgery, might not. not looking good, but could be just what's expected under the circumstances. i call them about 8pm to check, talk to the doctor from thursday. now sascha's seemingly developing pneumonia (gee, maybe aspiration from the food they fed him before surgery? idiots.) they want to put him on oxygen. fine, do it. i start asking more questions. why isn't he on steroids? are they doing anything more proactive then simply making him comfortable? do we have anything to lose at this point? (not my first experience with post-surgical ferrets). if he's made it this far, there must be some spark, some spirit left in him; he wants to live. they're 'just starting him on steroids', and now the doctor's 'been doing some research and considering the possibility of ibs/ibd (irritable bowel syndrome/disease)'. day 5: phone call in the morning from an unknown doctor. looks grim. still on oxygen and fluids (which they switched to hetastarch to help with the congestion in his lungs), still bleeding/bloody stools, hypothermic, but moving around a bit; might be the steroids at work giving him some needed energy. could be a good sign. phone call from friday's surgeon 30 minutes later (he didn't know the other doc had called): he sounds slightly more optimistic. sascha's moving about, still bleeding, but maybe from the surgery. there's hope that he will pull thru, and that the biopsies may show something. for now, still unknown what's going on with him. i plan to go see him on my way to work. at 10:35, just 30 minutes later, the first doctor calls back. he had just coded 5 minutes before; did i want them to continue CPR? they worked him for a total of 10 minutes; compressions, atropine, epi. ekg flatline, pupils fixed and dilated, bloody fluid coming from his lungs. no coming back, no bringing him back. sascha bean-head, the world's nicest ferret, is gone forever. aftermath: i went after work sunday (imagine what a great day that was..) to pick up his body and settle the bill. we're talking just under $3,000. i'm not kidding. through my grief, i am angry. the biopsies are still sitting on their counter; they've not even been sent. all this suffering, all this money, and all i have to show is an astronomical bill and a dead ferret. all this for naught. (as for the biopsies, it's a moot point anyway, as all this was, as you'll read.) i take his body to his regular vet on monday (the 26th). they recommend i don't look at him; none-too-pretty. i request a necropsy if my regular vet thinks it will help. i'll pick up his ashes later this week. i then call CSU's pathology lab in ft collins to see when they think they'll even get the biopsies, let alone have results. unknown. i'm frustrated. my regular vet called tuesday. he was able to do a necropsy, hoping to give me some peace of mind. nothing remarkable found with his stomach, gi tract, lungs, just things consistent with a lot of illness and trauma, but he did say they did a very good job with the surgery; they were very careful and methodical, things looked proper. no help. he couldn't offer much more than condolences and 'we all did what we thought was right, and what we can, and don't second-guess yourself', and all those nice sounds. and now the clincher. this morning, 8am, my regular vet calls first-thing. he just got a faxed report from the ER vet hospital's own head radiologist, who *just* got a look at the x-rays; a week later (come to find out this person only comes to the office twice a week???) to them, it was obvious at first glance what was wrong with sascha, according to the report. turns out sascha had megaesophagus. so pretty much a death sentence from the get-go. i have heard of it and know the truth but never dealt with it first-hand. ironically, a barium x-ray would have shown it immediately, as nothing (including the barium) would have been going down past his esophagus. it just sits there, and then comes right back up. a whole lot of time and money would have been saved, but still not his precious life. we put this poor little thing thru absolute hell for nothing. there's no cure for it, and what little treatment there is only prolongs the inevitable. sascha was doomed. it had progressed over the last month, maybe two. gradual weight loss, unnoticed thru his beautiful thick full fluffy coat, but he'd dropped from over 1200 grams to under 700. he was wasting away, and nothing, but nothing could be done. in a way, he'd become a hungry ghost. this has been a weeklong nightmare, but now at least there's some waking up with this news, but i still feel awful for what we put him thru, and for all the money thrown at this, when nothing would have saved him. i am now in the process of disputing the charges, as i definitely feel an emergency vet that promotes themselves as 24/7/365 needs to have specialists there all the time who can accurately read x-rays, as the doctor and surgeon (highly trained medical professionals? ha.) were obviously incapable of it and yet were presented to me intrusting confidence as qualified to make such decisions, and i was billed far above and beyond what i should have been if they'd had someone there to get it right the first time, a week ago. i'm willing to pay for the care he received up until the misdiagnosis, nothing more. (if anyone can suggest any sort of legal help i can get in such a case, i'm all ears. if this were a person, can you say 'malpractice'? 'gross negligence'?) i know non-pet owners will ask why we who have pets will go to such extremes, or get so wrapped up in them, and especially something like ferrets, who seem so delicate and short-lived...sometimes i might wonder too. but then i look at max and pixie, all pretzeled together so sweetly sleeping, or tumbling over each other playing, and i remember all the wonderful memories i've had with my little fuzzbutts over these 11+ years, and i know why. and i cry. there's nothing more to say now. i felt i had to tell sascha's tale, sing his song, 'celebrate his life', as it were, so he'd not be forgotten. hug your ferrets, all your pets, often...love them always. you never know when they'll be taken from you. please, bridge greeters, show sascha the way and let him know if i'd only known we were steered down the wrong road, his journey would not have been so long and painful. i never wanted that to happen. i'm so very sorry. ~sherrie, aka daoine o', the ferret queen and now we are 2: max and pixie farewell to sascha-beanhead, the world's nicest ferret ~4/2002? - 11/25/2007 waiting at the bridge: monty-boo, razzle, jezebel, loki, sylvi, and natasha the stranger... and still missing dweezil, my one small star: 08/26/96-09/03/04 [Posted in FML 5807]