From:
Tamara Wrzesinski
Date: 2001-06-14 11:49:00 UTC
Subject: unusual anemia
Unfortunately all of this is in retrospect as our 21/2 year old Samantha
passed away almost 2 weeks ago- while it all happened so quickly it seemed,
now I need to know if anyone has any information on unusual anemias in
ferrets for my own peace of mind, I'll explain.
Outside of our Samantha being more tired- there were no obvious signs of
illness.
Finally we decided that she looked pale and we brought her to our vet who is
the best in our area when it comes to exotics and he has tons of experience
with ferrets- blood was drawn- just from looking at her blood it was
worrisome- as her blood was very thin (pink instead of red). The results
from the specialty lab confirmed the anemia, but from the one test it looked
as though she was making red cells- she died before we could check her blood
again for comparison.
Our vet initially thought of estrogen from an ovarian remnant- but her vulva
was not swollen. An estrogen producing adrenal tumor- but she had no hair
loss.
An ultrasound showed no evidence of any problems with her internal organs,
bust she did have some fluid in her abdomen.
So while all these tests and thoughts were being worked out- we started her
on steroids and oxyglobin- and as expected, her activity level cycled with
the oxyglobin treatments.
She died before we could check her blood again- I'm glad as I mentioned in
my e-mail to FML that she waited until I got to the vets before she passed
on- so we could say our goodbyes.
Autopsy results showed no obvious problems with any of her internal organs-
so the conclusion is that she had an unusual immune mediated anemia.
My husband and I wish we could understand why this happened and despite
reassurance from our vet we still feel as though there must have been
something we could have done to save her. If nothing else I feel we should
have brought her to the vet sooner. But as I said in the beginning I said
all this is in retrospect...
If anyone has any info on what might have happened- please let us know!
Sincerely,
Tammy Wrzesinski
p.s. sorry this post is so long- I tried to condense it down to the bear
minimum.
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