Hi. I haven't been able to subscribe to this is almost two years. Boy did I miss it and I am back on just in time. First things first I should reintroduce myself. I was living in Maryland with four fuzzies a while back. Now I am living in Massachusetts with six fuzzies. I work at the (as far as a lot of people are concerned) number one animal hospital in the country and boy does it come in handy. My kids were fine (all four of them) until November of 1998 when I walked into a pet store innocently looking for food and saw "Buddy" ( I have since changed his name). He was playing around in this three story cage all by himself, and he was Huge for a kit!!! He had a sign above him saying something needing donations so that he could have this surgery he needed because the pet store couldn't afford any more medical treatment for him and the owner didn't want him sent back or put down. So I of course played with him for a bit and decided to think about it. I am not sure when I thought it over, I just remember going home and getting the house ready for him the next day. So I went back the next day and picked him up and the cage he was living in so that he could have something familiar to him in a new home and the others wanted a new cage anyway. So we all came home and the next day he came to work with me for what I thought would be surgery. I was surprised and excited when their doctor said my new baby didn't need surgery. He had all of his vax and check up and radiographs to make sure he was ok inside, just to double check to surgery wasn't needed. Well while he was in there I saw another tiny panda ferret sitting alone in a cage without a name or an owners name or anything. Tracey, our doctor, said it looks like he needs a home and so I asked around why he was there. Apparently a woman had seen him walking around her neighborhood for over a year and since winter was coming she caught him and brought him in there to hopefully find him a home. He weighed less that a pound and looked like a kit but he was about a year and a half or so. I came home with yet another fuzzball. This time my fianc=E9e said we would just nurse him back to good health and then adopt him out to someone who would love him. Well that never happened. He is a chubby little guy now and him and Sugar (formerly known as Buddy) are best friends. They wrestle 20 out of 24 hours a day. I love it. They are both in perfect health and happily adjusted into the new home. The four others are doing ok. They are getting older and of course having health problems now. Casey, my old lady, has insolinoma. She lost a lot of weight and started biting me for sweet treats so she came to work with me and that was the trouble. I was terrified at first but I am getting better with it. She loves her prednisone!!! She just had her one month check up and her blood glucose only went from 58 to 59 but at least it didn't go down. She also has a very large spleen and started losing hair at the base of her tail recently too. She is a great ferret though. She always wants to be cuddled and petted. She loves people. Then there is Bear who was doing ok in October but has since followed Casey's footsteps. Losing weight, biting for sweet treats. He goes for a glucose check in April and we shall see what happens. He is only 2 and a half though so I worry for him. Gravy is my peanut. She is about 5 or so and totally neglected as a kit. She was kept locked in a hamster cage and fed meow mix for three years. she weighs just about a pound now and I have had her for about two years and she loves to be out of the cage and eat real food. She is out hairless wonder. she has no hair on her tail at all. We had an ultrasound in January and it looked fine so I am hoping in April when she gets rechecked that it looks good again and she is just hairless. I also have biscuit who over the past few months has gotten quite chubby and turned into what looks like a silverback gorilla. he is the perfect ferret though. he has that ferret body you see in drawings, he always uses the litter pan, never bites, plays when you want to, doesn't pick on any other ferret, likes to go for walks on the leash and basically is pretty easy going. never had any medical problems. he was our first so he started the craze. they aren't all like that though. "what litter pan?" anyway those are my kids. They all sleep together except Casey who for whatever reason they all beat her up. She always has some sort of battle wound on her neck so she is now caged alone and let out all night while the others are let out all day and caged at night. she is a people ferret anyway. I will be writing again soon, thanks for listening to me babble about my kids!!! Nikole and Gene also Biscuit, Gravy, Bear, Casey, Sugar and Popeye [Posted in FML issue 2622]