Hello all, I just wanted to take the opportunity to express my sincere thanks to both Dr. Weiss and Dr. Williams for their gratious help with my sick ferret. Now the story, JJ a 5 year old neutered male ferret began losing weight at an alarming rate and started to get lethargic. I did some feeling around on him and observed that he had a really big spleen. He also seemed to show some weakness in his hind legs as well. I contacted the Dr's and explained the symptoms as well as the fact that we don't have a great deal of money as my wife is about to have a baby (at any instant!). After talking to the Dr's I went ahead and scheduled JJ for exploratory surgery with my vet. Currently, my vet doesn't have a lot of experience with ferrets other than neutering and spaying, but I feel that he is extremely competent and basically, you gotta start somehwere. He opened JJ up and found that his spleen was about the size of a large thumb. Since he was also experiencing weight loss and hind quarter trouble, Insulinoma was suspect as well. As it turns out, JJ had SEVERAL islet cell tumors all over his pancreas with the largest being approximately 2.5 cm around. The doctor called me while JJ was on the table and explained that basically, he was a very unhealthy little guy and it might be best to just let him go. He also discovered small tumors on both of his adrenals, and one of his lymph nodes was swollen as well. (at this point you're all probably thinking I'm a horrible parent for not doing something sooner) The bottom line is, he really didn't show any clinical symptoms of having any problems until the weight loss started. He had always had problems with his hind quarters (he was a resucue ferret, and at the time we suspected disk problems). My message here is READ THE DISEASE FAQS AND KNOW YOUR FERRETS!!!! If I had caught on to the subtle signs earlier, JJ would probably still be with us today! The good news of all of this is; I printed up all of the disease FAQS for my vet and he got to get some good experience with a sick ferret. Both Dr's offered to talk to my Vet if he had any questions, and that was a great relief for me as well. At least my other two fuzzies will get a greater level of care because of JJ and the gift of knowledge he gave my Vet. The decision to let him go was one of the most difficult that I have ever made, but he really was a sick little guy and it would have been selfish of me to let him suffer. One more time READ THE FAQS, give them to your Vet, and just because a Vet doesn't know a great deal about ferrets, most are interested in learning and they have to start somewhere... Thanks again to all, Douglas [Posted in FML issue 1135]