From:
Shelley Knudsen
Date: 2001-05-03 09:20:00 UTC
Subject: Neurological disease - cervical chordoma
Hello,
I would just like to thank everyone who e-mailed me regarding
my ferret Jake,
who had what seemed to be progressing neurologic disease, and
to let them know
what the results were. He initially began with a "drunken
walk", which stayed
about the same for about 4 months, and then, almost overnight,
he went
drastically down hill, to where he would only drag himself
along on his side,
he had to be syringe fed, and he would periodically arch his
neck back in
opisthotonos. We had done blood tests, radiographs,
ultrasound, ECG, and
neurologic exam with no definitive results, and treatment wise
we tried
antibiotics, prednisone, and accupuncture, all with no
results. I don't have
the official necropsy report back yet, even though I had him
euthanized a week
and a half ago here at K-State Vet College, and there is a
pathology department
here, but, one of the senior students was nice enough to keep
pestering the
pathology department for me, and the results that she got back
over the phone
last night was a cervical chordoma. I looked in the medical
literature, and
there has only ever been two other cases ever reported in
ferrets, in 1993, of
which Dr. Williams was one of the researchers. The last
ferret of mine that I
put to sleep before Jake was Jasper, about two years ago, and
he had an osteoma
in his skull, another extremely unusual occurence in a ferret.
Lucky me.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone who e-mailed me ideas
or words of
encouragement.
Dooks and hugs to your fuzzies,
Shelley Knudsen
Class of 2004
Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine
ferrets@inebraska.com sknudsen@vet.ksu.edu
785-776-5618 402-463-0190