From:
"Ferretlove"
Date: 2002-09-26 20:46:14 UTC
Subject: Mason's insulinoma surgery and autopsy :-( Questions...
To: "Ferret-Health-list" <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <002801c2659d$e395a060$4755fd3e@petestanley>
I had no idea that anything was wrong with Mason, he was more quiet than the
others but he was 6 years old. Then Friday/ Saturday the 30th and 31st of
August he was wobbly when he was out and then he started staring into space
and I thought it *could* be a low sugar and I tested him twice with a blood
glucose meter and he had 48 and 55mg/dl. Then the vets tested him the next
Monday and his sugar was down to 25mg/dl. He had crashed on the way to the
vets and had been pretty limp but was back to normal at the vets. Anyway,
Mason was then put on pred and for a few days he was a new ferret, playing,
running, jumping, he *ran* up the stairs and was doing so well. He was up
for a whole hour, wrestled with Reno and Fox, he could get into the washing
machine, he was just back to normal. So I booked him in for insulinoma
surgery for the 9th. But the Friday before the surgery he suddenly and
quickly started deteriorating, stopped eating over the weekend and was very
weak and depressed. He couldn't even get to the toilet in the cage... I
almost had him put to sleep on the Sunday... Got him to the vets Monday and
my vet was shocked how much weight he lost and how weak he was so she said
they'll put a drip into him to get glucose into him and stabilise his blood
sugar. But when they tested his blood glucose, it was sky high... Sort of
309/327mg/dl... So I got a phone call from my vet and she said she was
going in to see what was going on. We raced to the vets because we wanted
to observe the operation and take photos, it was sooo weird looking in and
everything was moving inside... The pancreas was full of tiny insulinomas,
when she got to the liver it was riddled with tumours as well. There was a
really odd looking lymph node by the liver. We'd already said that we would
put him to sleep if it had spread to the liver so she injected the
euthanasia stuff into the catheter. He went straight away... It was a bit
of a shock, he hid his low sugars so well, I didn't know anything was wrong,
at least nothing bad... And then it was so far advanced... He was more
quiet and not very active but he did play and war dance every day, just not
for very long. And the only other odd thing was that he was twitching a lot
but I thought that had to do with the central nervous system or that
something was wrong with his heart after all even though the last x-ray was
okay...
But what could have caused his high blood glucose and so suddenly? Could it
have had to do with the liver tumours and the pred somehow? There are
pictures of his autopsy on my web page at:
www.ferretlove.co.uk/mapm.htm
The tumours were so small though that they may not be all that visible...
Thanks for any help.
Ulrike
West Wales Ferret Welfare
E-mail: ferretlove@ntlworld.com
http://www.ferretlove.co.uk
Last update 26/09/02
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