From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2002-09-10 08:44:48 UTC
Subject: RE: Some questions
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-Id: <p051117027c2624442874@[10.0.1.5]>
> Ok for starters I don't want to sound ignorant but what is friable
>intestines? The only reason why I ask is because this past Spring I
>lost Max my almost 4 year old mf Ferrt. He was my best friend.
>Anyway, we came home one day and he was very dehydrated. After
>several days with the vet he took a turn for the worse and she
>decided surgery was in order to find out what was going on. Any way
>when she opened him up she found his intestines to be perferated
>almost completely through the entire organ. It was hardly even
>poosible to get a sample. We then decided to put him down it was
>unfixable. There was no blockage and the autopsy revealed nothing
>conclusive. So, I am curious to hear another story similar.
They are intestines which are easily torn.
We have had two such individuals over the space of around 20 years.
The first was an acute case (sudden, marked onset) and thought to be
possibly due to an infectious disease process which may have come in
from bird droppings on our shoes, but that is hypothetical since the
actual cause was never found. She passed away at a young age very
rapidly of her illness. This was close to 20 years ago, and the
routes for getting answers were much less in place then than now.
The second was Warp, who had the problem long term. When she had her
first surgery for it during her late youth (if memory serves) there
was a lot of old damage as well as new. Since then she had two or
three more surgeries when it was life or death. The work was very
hard because the repairs would rip open, too. Warp wound up living
into her eighth year when other causes took her (earlier this year),
though there were multiple times after the vets decided to not open
her up again that she had to be on antibiotics and Carafate, and
numerous bouts of anorexia involved. Warp would present with
anorexia and even with projectile vomiting of blood at least twice.
Her cause also was hypothetical only, as being an unusual form of
autoimmune disorder.
One of the vets has spoken of seeing the symptom with intestinal lymphoma.