Last night my oldest ferret Zooey woke me up several times frantically grooming my neck. She was licking me and also "chewing" the way they chew when they have an itch. She's never been into that sort of thing (or into licking faces), only the past couple weeks. I've also noticed a patterned hair loss and some swelling in her vulva recently. I'm waiting for a blood test for adrenal on her--is there any connection here? Has anyone else noticed their ferret doing this w/adrenal? My other ferret Linus didn't, maybe it's a girl thing? Zooey is 6 years old, and is going to have surgery for G.I. biopsy/insolinoma/possibly (probably) adrenal. If anyone has had experience with this please let me know. I have been trying to figure out what's the best thing to do here--I have never had to make these decisions. 6 is geriatric, but is it that old? The vet says he has seen advanced inflammatory bowel diseases turn into lymphoma-that is much more serious that the other two problems she has. What would I do then? He says lymphoma is much more serious and less easy to control. She's been very clingy the past couple months, she'll come up to me and want to be held and then will sit in my arms for hours. It's very cute but very scary--this is so not normal for her. I want to give her the attention but I feel like i'm losing the other ferrets--esp. the youngest one Sybil who's only 1 1/2yrs old. Is there a balance here? thanks, Minta (&Zooey, Linus, Martin & Sybil) [Posted in FML issue 2894]