From:
Jackie DeCarlo
Date: 2001-08-15 19:33:00 UTC
Subject: Re: update on Lucy
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., sharon allen <echotally@y...> wrote:
> For those of you who have been following Lucy, who has
> a normal adrenal panel, questionable ultrasound and
> profound fur loss as well as insulinoma:
>
> The very competent surgeon in Richmond who operated on
> Toby in June and removed his left adrenal does not
> feel comfortable doing an exploratory on Lucy because
> he is afraid he will find normal adrenal glands based
> on the panel and the surgery would be futile.
>
> Thanks,
> Sharon Allen
************************************
Sharon, I can feel your frustrations...I had 2 ferrets that had the
Estradiol test ran on them...Buster's came back normal and Harvey
came back real high..now mind you Harvey had NO signs at all and
Buster was showing the classic symptoms, aggressiveness, hairloss,
etc...so off Harvey goes to have surgery (after many sleepless nights
thinking they switched the tests) and he had his left adrenal
removed...still not feeling comfortable about Buster I had them test
again and they said the test wouldn't come back for at least 3 weeks
so I waited...after the 2nd week I called to say I would like him to
go in for exploratory because something had to be wrong (both ferrets
were given to me from a club member so I really did not know their
history very well). The day before the surgery my vet calls and say's
the results came in and of course they are normal again and do I
still want to go ahead with the surgery, I said yes.. Well, he came
out minus both adrenals and after a look see she found nothing else
out of the norm inside him...I am really glad my vet listens to the
gut feelings of the pet owners since we are the one's that know them
better... Since he is still healthy I am glad I did it...I would not
hestitate to have an exploratory on any of my healthy ferrets if
tests come back inconclusive for something that I know is taking
place...The expense that is going into a lot of these tests can be
put aside for the surgery. Because Lucy's adrenal may not be bad
maybe there is something else that only an exploratory can find...I
hope all goes well with Lucy..... This is just my 2 cents
worth..
Jackie