From:
Steve Austin
Date: 2002-09-13 04:28:50 UTC
Subject: ferret death and questions unanswered
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <20020913.004105.776.5.kazpat1@juno.com>
Don't read if you are easily upset, I wanted to
describe everything, but it may be upsetting
to read:
I am posting this for a friend who just lost her little ferret and
doesn't have the heart to do so. She had a few questions
that she asked me to ask for her.
She had a 3 year old ferret that was status post left adrenal
surgery a few months ago, early this month started to have
a swollen vulva so she went into surgery 9/3 at a vet
that was recommended to her, but was over an hour away.
The surgery went well and a large right adrenal was removed.
Afterward the ferret was placed on prednisone for 5 days then
was on a tapering dose. The ferret never bounced right back from
surgery,
although eating and wanting to do some things, seemed to sleep
more than usual. 7 days post op she started to look sick, just
glassy eyes, and stopped eating. She was separated and
after 6 hours had not eaten, but did pee and poop. She seemed
a little dehydrated and just didn't look well so she was brought
to the local vet . There the vet drew blood for complete chemistry panel
and a CBC. The ferret is about 1 lb, and the vet drew 2 ml of
blood from the jugular vein. Then gave her sub Q fluids, about 20ml-
right after
receiving the sub Q she started to breath fast and didn't seem
right, when it didn't improve the vet gave her sub q ? dextrose,
shot of benadryl and shot of dexamethasone. My friend said
she seemed to be gasping and was a very pale color. The vet
just said to watch her in the cage for a little bit to see if
she will respond to the treatment and not to upset her.
After a few minutes she started to get worse gasping, panicky as if
struggling
to get out of cage described as thrashing or ?? seizure and screamed out,
then took one last breath. The ferret never looked blue just pale./white.
The vet was immediately called in and
tried to do CPR and oxygen/intubation at this point, but it did not help.
The vet that did the surgery was called at that time, and
the only comment he made later was that 2ml of blood was a lot
on a small ferret- but he didn't want to tell the other vet
this, he just mentioned it to my friend later.
Questions are if 2ml of blood draw would make the ferret
that shocky? If somehow the jugular blood draw can
have a complication as described?
If the sub Q had anything to do with it, or it was all
a coincidence and the ferret went into shock and
collapse from something else?
Thank you for any input, also the labs were not sent as of
yet, my friend is torn between wanting to know and
just afraid it will be normal and somehow that means
the ferret was o.k. until the vet visit- she is really second
guessing herself right now.
The only thing I could think of was addison's crisis, but
can't explain the response to the blood draw and SQ.
Patty K.
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