From:
Lisa Ferret mom
Date: 2001-08-21 20:38:00 UTC
Subject: Mysterious Illness
We appear to have a mysterious virus going through our
fuzzies. You may remember me posting a few weeks ago
about our little Pepper. Xrays showed a "mass" in his
abdomen. After two weeks of steroids, the mass was
gone and he is back to his old self. Now Stinky is
very ill. He has been at the vets since yesterday
morning. Here is the bizarre part-
We thought Stinky had a blockage. Yesterday morning
he started vomiting violently. This is the first any
of our 4 fuzzies have ever done such a thing. Because
I could not get him to take any water, and he did not
use the litter box for a few hrs after, I took him to
the vet fearing dehydration most. Sunday he had been
eating and drinking normally, which is why I feared a
blockage. The vet took an xray after he vomited again
and saw what he thought was a mass in his stomache.
When he did not improve today, the vet did surgery to
remove the object. As it turns out, there was no
object in his tummy, but found it to be inflamed as
his spleen had somehow become attached to it! He said
at some point he injured himself quite severly,
rupturing the end of his spleen. When it healed, it
attached itself to the stomache.
I can honestly say that I have no memory of any such
injury. The vet said it could very well have happened
prior to him coming into our home as it was a very old
injury. The fact that he contracted some type of
virus has just aggrivated it to the point that he was
getting sick. All of our ferrets are VERY well cared
for. Several people here (ferret experts) will attest
to how spoiled they are. This injury really blows my
mind.
Warning to all though - none of us humans in the house
have been ill, but obviously our fuzzies are. Have
any of you seen a bad virus go through your homes like
this? The cage is cleaned almost every day, so one
would think that I am killing any bacteria in there as
well. Our ferrets probably have one of the cleanest
cages going. And no, the ferrets are not in the cage
until everything is completely cleaned and dried. I
do not feel there is any chance that they are
ingesting the cleaner. If anyone else has ever seen
such things I would love your input.
Lisa, Stinky, Pepper, Mitsy and Pristine
=====
Lisa
Trickster (Stinky), Pepper, Mitsy and now Pristine (my rescue)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/