From:
"Avatar Comics"
Date: 2002-08-03 17:43:58 UTC
Subject: Need help with diagnosis
To: "Ferret Health List" <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <NEBBKLCFOLPOEDNHLDPOEEHLCBAA.avatar@acsol.net>
Hello all,
My 5 year old ferret Elvis had exploratory surgery yesterday. Over the past
few weeks Elvis has been sleeping more, not war-dancing, not eating as
much - generally not being himself. I took him to my vet last week and the
vet found a lump in Elvis's abdomen - he suspected the lymph nodes that are
associated with the intestine were enlarged. He gave Elvis a shot of
steroids and told me to bring him back in 5 days to see if the lump had
shrunk - it didn't, so he did the exploratory, not only to look at the lump,
but also to look for adrenal tumors since Elvis has been gradually losing
his hair on his back and tail since his surgery to remove tumors on his
pancreas last November.
While my vet didn't find anything really bad (no cancer, no adrenal tumors,
no more tumors on the pancreas), he did find some things that puzzled him so
I thought I would put it to the vets on this list. First, Elvis's intestines
were reddish, indicating some kind of irritation. Second, the lymph nodes
were also irritated - he took a sample to send in to the lab. Third, he said
Elvis bled a lot more than normal - not like he was going to bleed to death,
but he said it was more like a cat spay than a normal ferret surgery(?).
Fourth, he ran an in-house blood panel before surgery and one of Elvis's ALT
levels was low. He wants to do a full blood panel, but he didn't want to
take any more blood right after the surgery so we will be doing that in a
couple of weeks. Elvis recovered really fast after surgery, he used his box
and climbed up in his hammock right after the drugs wore off.
My vet is very ferret-knowledgeable, but he does not have many years of
experience treating them. Could this be some kind of liver disease? The
dreaded ADV? Something else? I would appreciate hearing the thoughts of the
more experienced ferret people on this list.
Thanks in advance,
Serena and the Wrecking Crew