Yesterday I took my big guy, Norm, to the vet., because I noticed that he had 2 skin tumors. My intentions were to have some bloodwork done so that in the near future he could have those itchy mast cells removed. However, on Christmas day I noticed that Norm would wake up and choke for a minute or so. It only happened twice that day, but my hubby said that he heard him doing the same thing earlier that week. Eventhough it wasn't a frequent occurence, I was concerned about it. I reviewed my Ferret FAQ and I kept looking at the section on heart disease. I mentioned that to my vet. yesterday, and we decided to take some x-rays to see what his heart looked like. Well, it turns out that the big guy has an enlarged heart. The normal ferret heart should cover 3 ribs but Norm's is a bit past the 4th rib. My vet. gave him some lasix and depending on the bloodwork results would like for Norm to see a specialist. For those of you that have had this similar experience, is it worth seeing a specialist? Wouldn't he/she just be confirming the obvious? Why not just treat Norm with lasix and digitalis (or something similar) since we can only treat the problem anyway? Norm is my buddy and I would do anything in the world for him, so if it's worth seeing a specialist then we will. I guess that I just don't have too much experience in this area and would like to hear from some of you that have had this experience with your ferrets. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Melanie and the gang (Gizmo, Norm, and Moser) [Posted in FML issue 2912]