From:
Caitlyn Máire Martin
Date: 2001-12-01 13:03:00 UTC
Subject: Mystery seizure
Hi, everyone,
Romana is our big mystery right now, and I'm hoping someone has some clues. Romana is an extremely petite three year old female. She had left adrenal surgery just over a month ago. The pathology report showed a fully encapsulated neoplasia(?), and she recovered well. The only problem is that her vulva has remained extremely swollen, causing us to wonder if the right adrenal gland may be affected as well. At the time of the surgery there was no sign of insulinoma or any other problems.
On Thursday evening Romana was pretty lethargic and didn't play as normal. Yesterday morning she ate her chicken gravy but then vomited a little bit of it back up. About half an hour later I heard whimpering/crying and I found her in the midst of a seizure. Her entire body was convulsing, and she was making these pathetic little crying noises. This lasted maybe a minute and a half.
After the seizure yesterday she was like a wet dishrag: totally limp. She recovered briefly but then went totally flat again. I picked her up and she didn't react at all. I offered her a favorite treat and she ignored it. I wrapped her in a blanket in the afternoon and took her to our vet's office.
About two thirds of the way she snapped out of it, climbed down to the floor from the passenger seat, and used the litter pan I left her. She then started exploring my car. I must have looked really strange at stoplights when she perched herself on my shoulder or on the middle of the steering wheel. I had no cage; I didn't expect her to recover like that.
Our regular vet wasn't in, but his associate (who is pretty ferret knowledgeable in her own right) saw her. By that time Romana was running around acting absolutely normal. Her blood glucose was 83, which is low-normal, and certainly not indicative of insulinoma. This couldn't have been an Addisonian Crisis either. She wouldn't have snapped back from that and her vulva wouldn't still be oh-so-swollen.
We are watching her closely, but she's been absolutely normal ever since. Romana will get checked by our regular on Monday if nothing goes wrong in the meanwhile. For right now we are absolutely stumped.
Does anyone have any ideas or clues?
Thanks,
Caity