Hi All: A few wks ago, I wrote about my ferret Minxie (female, age 4), who passed away suddenly & w/ no reason our vet could see from her necropsy. Her tissue samples were sent to the Ohio Dept of Agriculture for analysis. To recap her history briefly: Minxie had a severe reaction to her vacs back in Apr. About a month ago, she received her second melatonin implant, & had unstoppable bleeding from the injections site from 11a to about 7:30p. She naturally became very pale & lethargic due to this. Our vet suspected Evans Syndrome/immune mediated hemolytic anemia, & she was put on pred & vitamin K...& later put on Pet-Tinic, all of which seemed to help her quite a bit. About 36 hrs before she died, her appetite started declining, & she became lethargic again. Our vet put her on carafate. The next morning, she wouldn't eat hardly at all, she was becoming extremely pale & more lethargic. We had a visit scheduled w/ our vet for the following morning (he wasn't in that day), but I made an appt to take her in for some xrays, to see if there was any evidence of abdominal bleeding. The only thing that showed up on the xrays was a slightly enlarged spleen, which she'd had on & off for a few wks. I took her in for her xrays at 4p, & by 5p, she was declining at an alarming rate. We decided to try a transfusion from one of my other ferrets; I brought Barret in, 6cc of blood was taken, & given to Minxie through her right rear trochanter. W/in 20 min, she had a seizure & died. The necropsy done by our regular ferret vet the following morning showed no evidence of any bleeding, no ulcerations anywhere, & again, the only thing that looked not totally right was the slightly enlarged spleen. Mystified, he sent her tissues to the Ohio Dept of Agriculture, rather than the usual path lab he uses, to get the most thorough analysis possible. The result of that analysis was "high grade multicentric lymphoma". Her liver had been virtually taken over completely by it....it was in her spleen, her kidneys, & intestines. I was sitting in a restaurant when our vet called, & it was a bit noisy, so I didn't get the exact terminology, but he said the report talked about how many cells, or colonies of cells, per visual field in a high powered microscope. Our dr stated that it was "usual" to see reports of perhaps 6 -- 8 of these per visual field -- Minxie had an average of *14* per visual field -- higher than our vet has ever heard of. If it wasn't for the bleeding incident she'd had a few wks earlier, we still would have lost her, possibly as little as 2 wks later than we did. She was in extremely bad condition....which is so confusing for us, as she showed *no signs* of being sick, before the implant episode (just a few signs that the previous implant was wearing out -- excessive grooming of the other ferrets, some itching, some slight aggression towards some of her toys). The reaction to her vacs back in Apr could have been due to the lymphoma; the bleeding from the melatonin implant was almost certainly due to it; & she was probably too weak, due to the implant episode & the lymphoma, & the stress of the transfusion is probably what caused her death. Had she not had the transfusion, she almost certainly would have died w/in a few hrs, anyway, judging from how quickly she declined in just one hr before that transfusion. How our little girl could have seemed so healthy just wks before, playing, wrestling w/ the others, & w/ such a terrific appetite, when she was so sick, is just a mystery to us. How strong, resilient, & determined these little creatures must be. When I get an actual copy of the ODA report, I will post the details here. The only comfort we have is that, in the end, Minxie did not suffer for a prolonged period of time. She went very quickly. And I wonder about the reason she spent so much time, lying there in my arms before the transfusion, licking my hand from top to bottom.....was she saying goodbye? Was she thanking me for taking care of her? She'd never done anything like that before. She washed my hand so completely, taking her time to do it.....I treasure those few minutes. I wish I knew what she was trying to tell me. It hurts not to know what she wanted to say to me at that moment. I kept telling her how much I loved her -- maybe she was just telling me that she loved me, too. I want to believe that. More details as I know them. Lin [Posted in FML 7251]