Greeters, please make sure she had a safe trip there, since she didn't have one here. This may be hard for folks to read...I'm sorry. Tears haven't stopped pouring since this morning, and I feel I need to pour these words as well. Very short history since I've recently posted about her... Phoebe: cinnamon angora, adopted from Denver dumb friends league in november of 2010. Developed enlarged spleen a few months ago, she'd had a few bloody noses which we attributed to the very dry air this winter... I'd gotten her a humidifier and mail-ordered some extra filters (no use now). She had lost weight and had been anemic and on iron supplements, being monitored by the vet, anticipating a splenectomy, waiting for anemia to be better controlled. She'd been doing fine...eating/drinking/pooping/peeing. Less active due to spleen but still curious, alert, perky, wanting to get around and explore... Acting like nothing was amiss. Until today... When I went to give phoebe her food this morning and lifted the covers off her, she was weak and wobbly, lifting her head and moving it from side to side as if trying to 'sight in' on me...to me, her pupils seemed dilated; her eyes looked very dark/black whereas they usually were dark brown..I wondered if she could see. She was trying to get out of her hammock to get to me, like she'd do, only this time with great effort. This didn't look good at all.... She didn't want her baby food. When I lifted her from the cage, I saw she had dried blood coming out of her left ear, and blood mixed with feces around her rectum. She did drink some water I offered her but still didn't want the food. She was breathing shallowly and rapidly with occasional slight squeaky noises. I tucked her in my sweatshirt while deciding what to do (where she used to like to stay while I'd clean cages) and she settled down somewhat, occasionally scratching at the fabric, like she'd do to get comfy (oh, and the way she would wipe her face with her paws after eating...so adorable...it would almost hurt to watch her, it was so unbearably cute). But the blood...the weakness. She dozed, with her head resting on my arm. She liked the contact with me, just like she would reach for me when I'd try to put her back in her cage after giving her meds over all this time, or would put her paws on my knee to be picked up and placed in my sweatshirt pocket when I cleaned cages. Sorry if I'm rambling... I called the vet (the same vet who treated my pixie-doodle 2 years ago; bringing her back from the edge of death when her foot had become entangled in the cage during the night...I trust this vet with my ferrets) and explained how I'd found her, and that it looked pretty grim. I took her to his office (20 miles away..a horrific drive...just knowing it looked like I'd be coming home alone) and he agreed, she looked very much like something had happened inside her, whether a splenic rupture or perhaps some cancer, or again, that looming possibility of her not having been spayed (was going to check that during the splenectomy) and thus suffering from aplastic anemia, since she was so anemic. He went to take her to examine her and she reached for me...she wanted to be with me. He examined her and we decided this looked like a lost cause and we opted to help her cross. She was not even 2 years old...my heart was breaking. I held her while he gave her the shot, and continued to until she was gone. My heart was torn in a million pieces. The vet said he'd do the necropsy today. All day, waiting to hear. I finally got a call from the office, doc had had to leave on an emergency. He told them the necropsy showed *nothing* amiss, aside from the enlarged spleen, which simply looked enlarged. She had been spayed, it turned out after all. He went ahead and took a sample of the spleen and sent it to pathology...results in a week. But other than enlargement, to him it looked fine. (I'll be calling him first thing in the morning to hear it in his own words), but he told them all he found, which was *nothing*. I hate myself. What *happened* to her? To find *nothing* inside looking wrong? I feel like I have just killed my beautiful not-even 2 year-old angora girl for no reason. That the vet could find *nothing* inside her amiss? He sent off the spleen sample, but if it had looked cancerous, he would have been able to see that. I hate myself. I let phoebe down. If her spleen was cancerous, my hesitation in having it removed a month or more ago killed her...my heart is in so much pain. I don't know how I can live with myself...I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I was waiting for surgery until she was a bit more stable, but now my waiting seems to have killed her. No matter what, I'm the bad guy. To have no answer...the pain of that is killing me. I killed her. I made the choice to have her put to sleep...for seemingly no reason? Could we not have found what was wrong and treated it? That it wasn't that bad after all? That there were simple explanations for how she presented? And now it's too late. There's no coming back. So many people talk of the pain of ferret-deaths...I've now been through over a dozen myself after these years. Some people feel they don't want to own ferrets anymore...the pain of their deaths is too much to bear. I have 5 ferrets left now and am wondering if I'm capable of caring for them anymore...that I wronged Phoebe somehow and that I'm going to have to go thru these 5 darling's deaths over the years and make bad choices with them?...i really feel like a failure, and a horrible ferret-person. Each death seems to get harder and harder, and more mystifying...this is the second time there's been no definitive answers...the time before this being pixie's euthanasia after she crashed, but there was nothing found amiss then either...why? It's so unfair. All right. I've said enough...no doubt more than anyone wanted to see. Love your ferrets like there's no tomorrow. Because for some, there won't be. :( ~sherrie, aka daoine o', the ferret queen rest in peace, phoebe von plume...the fluffiest ferret in the mountains. my phweebler, my phweeble, my phwibling. you never got enough time to dance...and oh, her dances when she did...I miss her so much. more tears, tears, tears...my poor little Phoebe. burleigh, pandora, ashby, emma-wheee and sebastien and those over the bridge: felix, pixie-doodle, shay-shay mcweasel, max, sascha-beanhead, monty-boo, razzle, jezebel, loki, sylvi, natasha the stranger, and dweezil...my one small star. [Posted in FML 7384]