From:
Kym Barone
Date: 2002-04-20 17:42:00 UTC
Subject: Mouth Cancer?
Ive got a four year old ferret, Calvin Hob. He has been
losing weight, but only over the past week it seemed to be
more of a wasting condition than seasonal weight loss. He
lives with 7 other ferrets so I had not noticed any reduction
in eating or difference in poops, however I didnt see a lot
of bad poops in the potty box when it was changed. He remained
active and bright-eyed until yesterday, when I noticed he was
stumbling. I suspected insulinoma and picked him up to do a
blood glucose test. It was at that point I noticed blood on
the tip of his tooth, so I opened his mouth and found I
dont know what to call them, sores maybe? in his mouth,
several of them. These do not appear to be ulcers. They are
grayish white masses, about the size of a BB pellet. They are
in both corners of his mouth (on the lips, inside, not on the
gums), and they are above both canine teeth, again, on the
lip where it meets the gum, not on the gum; and there are
two more on the inside of his gums elsewhere. They look sort
of cottony, or sort of what it would look like if he hadnt
swallowed all of his food, but yet left it in his mouth.
He is dehydrated, and as mentioned, wasting. I immediately
prepared him some baby food, fearing he had not been eating
due to pain. He ate a half a jar of baby food eagerly. He
drank water from a dish with no problem. Once he had eaten, I
gave him sub-q fluids which he absorbed readily. I then gave
him more food, which he again readily ate. After he was done
eating I let him down to walk around, he did, but crawled onto
a blanket and rubbed his face around, and then also took his
paws and wiped his face, the adorable way they do when they
wash their face, but Im sure he did this hoping to make the
sores go away. He seems to want to be active, he does have
trouble walking on his hind legs (I did not do the blood
glucose once I found the mouth problems). But he looked much
better after eating and getting fluids. That was all last
night; this morning I got up early to take him to the vet, but
they were closed already and they refer to another emergency
clinic that are not good with ferrets. So I am trying to do
the best I can until Monday when he can get to a vet. I fed
him another jar of baby food and gave him more fluids. After I
did that, I took a q-tip and cleared out some gunk that was
around the sores, and some of the sores actually came off a
little revealing that the lip underneath has been completely
eaten away. Until I saw that, I thought I was dealing with an
infection of some kind; now I think Im dealing with cancer.
Ive seen another ferret go through a cancer of the mouth that
affected his gums, completely eating away to the bone. This
looks different, perhaps because its the lip and not the
bone. I did a search of the FHL archives and found nothing on
mouth cancer, I also searched Ferret Central and a few other
sites, still, Im finding nothing.
The prognosis for the ferret with the gum cancer was horrible
very little could be done. He had two surgeries to cut
away the cancer (which I cannot see how that can be done with
Calvin it would mean removal of the entire lip, Id think)
but he still kept getting worse.
Has anyone here dealt with this, or can some of the vets here
shed some experience on this? Calvin is just so young, so
energetic, I cant believe this can be happening to him L
Thanks in advance for any assistance you may be able to
provide to me.
Kym