Sorry to hear about Bree Nancy but hang in there. My first 2 ferrets both died from cancer (Is it my imagination or are ferrets pron to cancers?). The first signs that I noticed for either of them were swollen nodes under the jaw line, no behavior changes or loss of hair. Soon after this I could begin to feel enlargement of the spleen. Feeling this early on is tough, the best way is to hold the ferret up off its feet by grasping it around the chest and letting its back legs dangle. This drops the internal organs downward out from under the ribcage. With your free hand, fingers toward the belly and thumb along the spine, gently palpate the stomach area and feel for any difference between the two sides. Sometimes its easier to switch hands to get the "other" side. If I remember correctly, the spleen is on the left. Don't be fooled by the kidneys which are up high just under the ribcage on both sides. Also try to do this before the ferret gets a chance to fill up his belly. This first occured to my female ferret (who was the mother of the male ferret that later, within a year, developed the same symptoms) I mentioned these things to my vet but she didn't seem to be concerned. Within several months the spleen had become very large and the ferret by then was hardly able to stay on her feet and her tongue and nose were very pale. We decided to remove her spleen. The vet said that the spleen, which normally removes damaged or old blood cells from circulation, was sequestering healthy blood cells and causing the ferret to be anemic. The splenetomy went fine and she recovered much of her energy and put on weight. At the time of the surgery the vet looked around inside her as much as she was able and did not detect anything that was obviously cancerous. The only really odd thing was that following the surgery my ferret lost alot of her coat, most of which was beginning to grow back within several months of the surgery. Unfortunately she also developed a cough around this time and began to lose weight again. She continued to decline in health and there didn't seem to be much that the vet felt could be done for her. I finally had her put down when she became weak enough that she didn't seem to be having much fun anymore (hard to know when this time comes but I didn't want her to suffer needlessly). I had her autopsied. She had lung cancer and there was evidence of other tumors in various other tissues. My guess is that she probably had malignant lymphoma already at the time that I first noticed her swollen glands. About a year later the male (her son) also developed swollen nodes and the beginnings of an enlarged spleen. When his spleen also enlarged so much that he developed anemea I had it removed. His recovery after surgery was very rapid. He continued to have swollen glands however but no other symptoms except for some hair loss on his tail. This had occured right after the surgery and the vet claimed that ferrets sometimes respond to anesthesia with hair loss, I'm not sure I buy this. My ferret, his name was Virgil, seemed to be healthy and happy for two years following the splenectomy. The first time I noticed anything wrong was when I found him sprawled on the floor, drooling, eyes glazed, almost completely unresponsive. I thought he had gotten into something poisoness so I quickly fed him some milk to help pass the toxicity through faster. He did swallow the milk and within 10 - 15 minutes seemed to be back to normal. When I took him to the vet however I got the bad news, tests of his blood glucose levels indicated that he had insulinoma. The good news is that he lived for another 6 months with the help of a drug that antagonizes the effect of too much insulin. I also decided to go with a course of chemotherapy. Virgil tolerated this treatment very well (none of the side effects that one so often sees in people). Both of these treatments were expensive and I really don't know if the chemo helped him or not. Perhaps it would have been an effective treatment if the cancer had been discovered earlier. The vet felt that the insulinoma was due to a metastisized lymphoma. What I'm not sure of in either case is whether the swollen glands and spleen were an indication of the initial cancer, were causitive of a general immune suppression which led to the formation of the cancers, or were completely unrelated. I'm also concerned that since both ferrets had similar symptoms and their cancers were both due originally to lymphoma (most likely), whether there is any chance that there was any form of contagion involved. If I had it to do over again, I'm not sure what I would have done differently, maybe I would go for more aggressive testing and treatment early on. Unfortunately the level of experience with ferret illnesses seems to vary a great deal from vet to vet. During the course of this entire experience I dealt with 3 different vets. The first 2 were in the same office and were the ones that performed the 2 seperate splenectomies. Neither of them were particularly well versed in cancer in ferrets. The last vet, the one that diagnosed the insulinoma and did the chemo, was one I found when I moved to the Chicago area. This is a really depressing subject but one that I wish I understood better since I am very fond of my new ferret and would like to be able to respond better than I feel I did with the first two in the event that he should ever become ill. Does anyone know of any research or publications on ferret diseases? Max [Posted in FML issue 0434]