From:
"- Z -"
Date: 2002-11-05 15:36:25 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Chocolate Moose -- please help!
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <F27Sk0BtpKBwB8Q8DS900006c1c@hotmail.com>
I am not a vet, but I can tell you that I had a similar prolonged recovery
experience after surgery with my ferret Cully when he was six and a half,
and that babying was the answer--he had lethargy, lack of appetite or
interest in things he usually liked, runny stools, and he seemed dehydrated
to me. In his case, he'd had adrenal surgery. I hauled him back into the
vet's twice to be told both times that he was doing fine and that there was
nothing physically wrong with him (I trust my vet very much, so I believed
this). I think it came down to Cully getting depressed by the pain and by
the experience of the surgery, so that he needed extra babying and coddling
to give him the encouragement he needed. I handfed him wet food every few
hours for a few days until he was eating on his own again. And after that
his recovery proceded more normally, but it was probably a solid week before
he was really enthusiastic about life.
Complicating fators for Cully also included the onset of insulinoma and
lymphosarcoma, although I don't think the lympho was affecting him too much
at that point (he lived for close to another year and a half after this
surgery). His glucose stayed in the mid- to upper 80s during his recovery
(and pretty much for the rest of his life); while this wasn't
life-threatening, maybe it affected his mental state enough to further his
depression. (I know I'm using the term depression pretty loosely, but
that's how it looked) He was put on pred at that time, and perhaps the
introduction of the steroids also threw his sense of well-being out of whack
(yes, I'm being terribly scientific here). But the pred may also have
helped to stimulate his appetite.
Hopefully this is encouraging--my experience showed me that ferrets are
individuals with different healing rates and attitudes about pain and
recovery. I'm hoping all the best for you guys--
Regina
Regina Harrison regina_z@hotmail.com or regina@channel1.com
http://www.channel1.com/users/regina/
blog: http://www.channel1.com/users/regina/zblog.html
Is that my business? Well, what is my business? Do I know? Did I ever
know? Lets not go into that. Youre not human tonight, Marlowe. Maybe I
never was or ever will be... Maybe we all get like this in the cold
half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right.
--Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
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