Quite awhile ago I wrote in asking for information on why Azrael (4 yr, MF M) may have been losing hair on his feet and had a very red, dry looking toe on the rear foot. He continued to lose hair on his legs, so Dr. Weiss and I decided to go with an adrenal surgery. Surprise, surprise. Dr. Weiss went in on Thursday and found two enormous hair balls in the stomach, 6 tumors on the pancreas, and no problem with the adrenals. Back to the drawing board for the hair loss. Chalking it up to stress from any number of environmental factors right now. He had shown no symptoms of the insulinomia, and had been having diarrhea on and off (sign of the hairballs), but I had misinterpretted that as stress from the new ferret in the house and the possibility of contracting a digestive tract virus from the new ferret. All wrong. In short, don't ignore the little things, even though they don't seem like big problems. Azrael could have become very sick, and it was just a twist of fate that I scheduled the surgery when I did. True adrenal problems could have waited a little longer. He is recovering fantastically from the surgery. Can't keep him in bed, and he's been hungry since he woke up. The tumors will come back eventually, and then we'll start on prednisone. And he will be getting a lot more laxatone. It's a good thing he likes it. I'll post again about the hair loss. I'm hoping to see it growing back in soon! Lorali J Barber Production Editor The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 9650 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20814-3998 301-530-7038 Fax 301-571-8303 [log in to unmask] http://www.faseb.org/ajcn [Posted in FML issue 1910]