It has become obvious that Hilbert is in his final days to months. The huge insulinoma tumor that started earlier in his 7th year and that was able to be debulked (but not completely removed due to involvement with critical structures) is pretty rapidly worsening with corresponding increases in his meds, and he once again is having urinary problems so is on Baytril while more is learned from several tests, with him having a sludge that is between amber and orange along with urine that appears normal. We don't know YET what the cause of his problems are but the POSSIBILITIES include: 1. infection alone (best case scenario) 2. bile in the urine (in which case his liver is also having decent problems now) 3. prostatic woes secondary to the regrowth of adrenal tissue (his adrenals had been badly inflamed by his kidneys rubbing on them back when he was in his first year and had bilateral hydronephrosis due to blockage from a combination of cystine uroliths and a bladder diverticulum so he had bladder surgery and adrenal removal, except that a tiny portion of adrenal wound up under an emergency vascular clip and regrew years later, and he has been on a low protein diet for the rest of his almost 8 years without more cystine stones till perhaps now so the low protein diet has gotten him many, many ferret years) 4. cystine uroliths again (which would probably be the worst scenario in his case) He has been through 3 bouts of near kidney failure in his almost 8 years, two within the last year, as well as that first one which almost killed him back when he was in his first year of life. So, it is pretty amazing that he has bounced back each time from near-death. This time he won't when he next worsens too much, because just too much is too wrong now, but Hilbert is the perfect example of why veterinary care makes sense. Saving him when he was young was at that point our vet's "hardest save" and we had a lot of work at home getting enough fluids into him and more but it worked and he even developed the habit of always drinking a lot of fluids (which he even did when on IV or when getting sub-cu fluids) which is probably another reason he has gone so very long. After his first close encounter with death he took about a year to come back to full levels of activity and about a year and half to regain all of his lost weight, but he did it. Hilbert is the ferret who saved my life when our furnace malfunctioned, and before our current main cage (from which he never escaped) he was our escape artist who used to get out almost each night and no matter how we shored up that cage he would always find a new way to get out. Hopefully, he still has a few good quality months in him, but if he goes sooner, please, do not be surprised. He and Morney are in their final illnesses (but she is doing better than he is right now, though her situation could change suddenly without warning given its nature) BTW, both of them are are Suprelorin implants and both had an increase in activity -- a real boost -- after getting that med and that continues even now. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/ http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html all ferret topics: http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html "All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow." (2010, Steve Crandall) [Posted in FML 6790]