i've gotten a couple replies already since my post last might, thank you vicki and lauren! (sorry if most of this is a repeat of what i emailed ya'll!) ;) so, earlier today i spoke with my old ferret-vet (since i'd moved too far away to continue seeing him), just to get a second opinion and to see if he had any ideas...he suggested holding off on surgery right away due to phoebe's marked anemia and to try her on pediapred for a week or so; that it could help give her a general 'boost' and perhaps help her iron levels/help the lixotinic work better, and that it could also possibly reduce the spleen size. he said splenic ruptures were really pretty rare; that the spleen is a pretty solid organ and that ruptures usually only occur in the case of cancer (in which case there's nothing that could have been done) or injury or trauma. he was pretty mystified by her labs; that they really don't point to anything specific. he agrees she seems too old for juvenile cancer, but too young for typical adult-ferret cancer, but again, she's an angora, and they can just be kinda...different. as for the possibility of aplastic anemia, he didn't rule that out as a possibility, that it could be, but that that's darned-near as bad as cancer...not easy to come back from, if at all. :( but until she's opened up, there's no way to tell if she wasn't spayed. it seems silly to pay several hundred dollars for an ultrasound, just to end up having to open her up anyway. but i do i feel better not having the surgery so soon, really...i wasn't terribly comfortable with it but understand where my current vet was coming from; fearing a rupture, but it seems less likely that it's that imminent...again, unless it's due to a malignancy. :( so for now we're in a holding pattern; keeping her on all the meds, and then we'll do another hematocrit in a week, maybe 2, and see how things are looking. thanks in advance for everyone's help, advice, and assistance (and prayers and good wishes!) :) ~sherrie and the weezils [Posted in FML 7352]