It's been a long time since I've been able to keep up with reading the FML let alone actively post. I figured that my latest incident is worthy of a swift kick-in-the-butt to do so. Yesterday one of my four fuzzies, Frosty, took a rapid nose-dive health-wise and ended up in the pet emergency clinic. A few days ago I noticed Frosty started experiencing some diarrhea (normal color, not green as with ECE) which persisted for a few days. Aside from that and a slight lack of his usual perky personality he seemed to be ok. He had good weight, his fur coat was nice, and he still performed his tricks for treats (and ate the treats too). So I thought maybe during a walk in the park he picked up a bug or something that had him slightly under the weather so I decided to just keep a close eye on him. Well, yesterday morning I went into their room to let them out of their cage for play time and usual maintenance stuff and Frosty was obviously in VERY bad shape. He came out of the cage and went over to the outside litter pan, climbed in and just plopped down. He didn't have the energy to lift his tail or do anything and I'm not sure if he even went. He laid there for a while, then got up, climbed out, and plopped right back down flat again and just laid there for a bit. Then he made an attempt to run across the room and his hind legs kept going out and he finally flopped over sideways and just laid there. At this point I started getting a bit nervous and tried the usual tummy rub which typically gets him riled up thinking maybe he was still waking up (that jedi mind trick rationalization stuff that human minds do ya know). No reaction. I picked him up and was mostly limp. Now panic starts setting in. I took him near a light to get a good look at him and he looked like he was miserable. His eyes also looked like they were turning inward, but it was hard to tell, especially when at this point I was going nuts. Well, after fighting to stay calm, I called the emergency clinic since the vet was closed on Sunday, got directions and got him there as fast as possible. They did x-rays (no barium though), a blood test, and quickly determined that he was majorly dehydrated. It was a must for him to stay over night and receive intravenous fluids. The x-ray didn't really show much except a possible enlarged spleen. The blood tests indicated a very high white cell count which the Dr. said typically indicates an infection of some sort, probably a bacterial one. This is all the emergency clinic came up with. They had no diagnoses for his problem. Frosty had to be discharged by 8:00 am this morning as the emergency center is only open off-hours, so I had to get him to a vet. The east-side of Cleveland doesn't have any vets that I know of that have lots of ferret experience. My usual one has some so I feel comfortable going to him for usual things but I remembered that Linda Iroff and Bev Fox from The North Coast Ferret Shelter had highly recommended a vet on the west side (quite a trek from the east side for those not familiar with Cleveland). Anyway, I wanted the best care I could get so I got a hold of Linda last night and she was very helpful giving directions to the vet (Dr. Wayne Turner - Animal Clinic Northview). I got up super early this morning (to avoid rush hour), picked up Frosty and hauled him across town to Dr. Turner where he is now being further tested. He was still miserable looking when I left him there, but at least he is still alive and seems to be stable. Hopefully I'll no more later today. I'm hoping for a positive diagnoses with treatment since he is only 2 years old! Too young to see him go just yet. :-(. Thought I would share this with everyone as a lesson of how important it is to really pay attention to your ferret's behavior and that even small changes coupled with diarrhea or other illness symptoms can be worth a trip to the vet immediately vs. waiting. This was my first experience with one of my ferret's having a major illness so I wasn't sure what to do. Maybe this will help someone else to act a little quicker under similar circumstances. Sorry for the long post. Todd Lockemer - Frosty (very ill, but still with us so far), Snickers, Kimba, Duchess [Posted in FML issue 2305]