(The following message was written Saturday morning 9/21/96) Hi Good Friends, My heart and soul are breaking nearly completely today as in a mere 4 to 4 1/2 hours my Mom and I leave for Pendleton, Oregon to meet Ed Lapinski from his Seattle Ferret Shelter, Ferret's Northwest I believe, to bring to him 9 of my shelter kids sick with ECE. This man is truly my Godsend in all of this horrribleness. The only thing that could break my heart and soul completely would be to lose any of my babies to the Rainbow Bridge only because two people cannot possibly give 27 sick ferrets the complete attention they require to beat this Damn ECE. Yes, all 27 are ill with it now and we cannot at all figure out where it came from originally due to this tho we have tried and tried. So with a very heavy heart and soul I will have to say goodbye to all nine of the kids in one fell swoop. At about 5 pm I will be holding, talking and loving these 9 for the very last time and hoping with all my heart they can understand that I love them with my entire heart and soul and that is why I have to do this to them. They will be Betty & Veronica, Kanth & Falcon, Yacko & Wacko, Idgie, and the most painful of all Larry & Two Socks who I feel have been with me forever. Being as Ed's shelter has never even attempted to place sets of three ferrets I chose to not bring him any and instead am bringing only sets of two and Idgie who unfortunately is all alone. For that reason only I have kept Stryker and Mr. B here with me since they were each a part of threesomes but seem to not be real close to the other two and can hopefully be happy without them. THANK the Great Spirit that Sweetheart and Kitzka's prospective adoptive family talked over all the ECE info. and procedures I could give them and decided these two babies needed them more than ever now or they too might have had to go today. I know taking them to Ed is best for them and that by doing this I give them my final gift, being a much better chance to survive this awful illness and to go on to be placed with a loving family in Washington. Nevertheless I am dieing inside. I am taking to Ed as many supplies for these furkids as I can. I am taking some Deliver 2.0, Science Diet A/D food, feeding syringes that arrived day before yesterday after a rush order (THANKS Gary H. for the info.) dry food mix, and as much of the nutrical type supplements that I can give from the wonderfully large donation we received from the company a long time ago. I hope this will help to keep them from having to spend too much to get them well. Also I am taking them a large bottle of Amoxy drops that we are picking up at the pharmacy this morning. My vet is not thrilled as appts. are wall to wall today but is going to squeeze us in this morning to help us quickly give Sub-Q fluids to all that need it before we go. I'm afraid Mom and I are so new to this that we are still a bit slow at getting it done and we simply do not have any time to waste this morning before leaving. I would appreciate it if any of you out there considering donating to a shelter soon might think of sending it to Ed's shelter for help in caring for these 9 wonderful fursouls and as a THANK YOU from us all for being there in the time of great need of another shelter. This will leave us with 18 ferrets still here but we finally had a brainstorm Thursday night very late and we bought the babies a large watermelon the next morning. All my personal kids love this and many of the shelter kids do too. They have been gorging on it and we are happy to see very few of them showing signs of much dehydration now. Out of the nine I am taking to Ed I believe 2 or 3 are actually in very very good shape and require little aid. That should help too. I need to THANK David Caudill for taking a risk today and coming to stay with the 18 babies still here. From noon after he is off of work until we return he will be with them. I was very worried to leave them alone for that long and finally broke down and asked him to come since I have not asked before due to his having ferrets of his own at home. We have a disinfectant now that kills Parvo and all else so perhaps that will help. He will leave fresh unexposed clothes at my parents house on the way here and then go there afterwards and bathe and spray the disinfectant all over himself and the new clothes and then try to find a place to hang out for a couple hours until he goes home to his crew of eight. I pray to the Great Spirit this will be enough precautions and that his ferrets do not get the ECE from helping us out this one time. If they do it may very well destroy me. I also want to THANK VERY MUCH both of the shelters in Oregon. I spoke to Christine Mathis and Melanie Ellis and they were wonderful. Since neither have been exposed to this killer I did not want them to even consider taking in any of mine. Melanie pointed me to Ed who is truly a wonderful man that must love ferrets as I do and she was also trying all else she could think of before calling me back later on to find Ed was going to take them. He had no hesitation in agreeing to take my nine since they are already an ECE shelter and no hesitation in agreeing to meet us halfway so I could get back to the other 18 sick waiting at home before too much time had passed. Both Melanie and Chris have offred to help in any way possible including medicines, money or anything else required. They are generous and loving people that I shall never forget as long as I live for this. I have only one really nice thing to report and that is that Otee, after receiving Sub-Q fluids day before yesterday for the 1st time even tho he was only mildly dehydrated, has begun to eat his dry food on his own. My Mom thought perhaps we should skip the fluids on him as we had done about 12 already and it had taken us 6 hours to do them all and we were nearly dead. I have no idea why but I said that maybe if we could get him fully hydrated he might begin to eat on his own and hot dang he did!! That is at least a small load off our minds as we prepare to leave the kids here for a minimum of 10 hours. I have to be honest tho and say that all the poeple that told us Sub-Q fluids were easy as can be must be off their rockers!!! Maybe if the ferrets are ill enough that might be the case but out of all 12 to 15 we have done only 2 were good and they were the most ill. The rest fought like demons and that does NOT make for an easy time. I hate doing it too as I feel I am torturing them even tho I know I am only trying to help them. Getting the needle in etc.. is not bad but trying to keep them from jerking so bad that the needle is not forced back out is. Oh well, we perservered and got them all done in the end, then we had our nervous breakdown's! And so to those of you who believe in it I ask you to pray for the entire FANG GANG today as some go on a roadtrip to a hopefully brighter future and others wait patiently for their Mommy and Grandma to return to them. To those who do not believe please still keep them in your thoughts and wish them well. THANKS to all that have helped me and Mom during the most truly awful time of our lives. TNT!! ********************************************************* * Kelleen Andrews & The FANG GANG! * * Founder & Operator of FANG Ferret Shelter & Club * * (Ferret Association of Neverending Glee) * * 405 S. Orchard Boise, Idaho 83705 * * 208-342-7292 [log in to unmask] * ********************************************************* * I'll take a good animal over a good mate anyday! * * All they want is lots of love and great chow. * ********************************************************* [Posted in FML issue 1700]