Christmas this year is being celebrated with a mixture of enjoyment and grief. Our little girl, Itachi, is dying. She is our first ferret and she took our learning how to care for a ferret in stride - she played, war danced and bullied the cats (who outweigh her by about 10-12 lbs!). I don't think she has been around other ferrets since she was bought as a kit, we got her when she was 1.5 years old from someone we knew who felt it was better to give her to a better home than keep her with the large number of reptiles and dogs that also needed attention. We brought her home and she instantly charmed her way into our hearts (and under the cats skin) with her bouncy, frisky, playful self. We did EVERYTHING wrong in the beginning (except feed her veggies), but she still thrived and showered us with weasel kisses, as well as making sure our feet were pest-free. Over the past few years, she has been battling lymphoma - rather successfully, considering she had very little medical care owing to the 6 hour round trip drive to a ferret vet. But she had her soup fed to her twice a day for over 2 years, including medicines that helped her regain fur and energy. We moved to IN this summer and took her to the vet, only to be told she had a rather large tumor on her pancreas. Due to her advanced age, we decided to not undergo surgery, but instead to continue palliative care. Over the past two months, she has been slowing down a lot - no weasel war dancing, no ferrying her duckies around the house, even a lack of interest in bullying the cats. This past week, she has become downright lethargic - to the point that we constantly fear that she will have passed while we were sleeping or at school. We have no funds to take her to the vet (they get the good food, we get rice and ramen until after the new year), so we are doing everything we can to make her comfortable. All we are asking is for her to be able to spend one last Christmas with us, or even make it to the anniversary of her joining our family - The beginning of Jan., but realistically, we know she might not make it through finals (this Thursday). So please, pray for our little fuzzbutt to wait a few more days before crossing the Bridge, pray that she knows how much she will be missed, and pray for our family - we lost a beloved relative last Christmas, we don't want to do this again. But please - go hug your babies, give them a treat - even if it is just a lick of peanut butter - love them with everything you have. These last few days or weeks are going to be difficult, but she will be spoiled. FireRose [Posted in FML 7270]