Chris -- If you could post this asap, we'd be apprecitative... Our youngest ferret Helix (11 months old) started having problems walking two weeks back. A trip to the vet and several xrays showed an area of concern on her lower spine. At the time it was felt that there were several possibilities - (1) a very bad inflamation, (2) some sort of tumor -- hopefully benign, or (3) a cancer. She was given cortisone and quickly returned to normal for about 10 days [normal literally means climbing the walls - this is the most athletic ferret we've had]. Yesterday she started loosing her back legs again. The situation has rapidly progressed to the point where she is nearly paralyzed in her hind quarters. She doesn't have control over urination or her bowels, although she is quite alert (considering) and doesn't seem to be in great amounts of pain. Our local vet has been trying to find someone who might be able to operate. The problem is that everyone he's tried in the NJ area (extending to PA and NYC) who is a neurosurgon will not operate on a ferret and none of the exotic vets will do any neurosugery. If anyone has any comments or pointers, we'd be in your debt. Steve & Sukie Crandall att!mhuxt!evans 201-580-0506 anytime [This sounds very similar to what happened to our ferret Nicia. She went through a number of bouts of severe infections over a couple of months, culminating with an almost total seizure - after the first 20 minutes or so, it turned into hind-quarter paralysis. It turned out in the end to be a large foreign body (what looked like about a dozen of the double pointed toothpicks - had to be acquired before we got her) that was transparent to X-ray and only slightly palpable lodged in her abdomen - found because our vet was stumped and decided to do an exploratory (and spay - was one of the suspicions). After the surgery she didn't recover very fast, so the vet resorted to some high doses of anti-inflamatory drugs (maybe cortisone) and Nicia finally came out of the paralysis. Our vet is pretty much an expert on ferrets (he's doing some original research) and may be able to help. I've sent you his name and number via e-mail. If you don't get it asap, please contact me by phone: (416)-595-5425 (office) or (416)-294-9253 (home)and leave a message. Good luck!] [Posted in FML 0036]