From:
daniphillips_2000
Date: 2002-05-07 13:11:00 UTC
Subject: Very sick ferret
Hi Everyone. I am new here, so I will tell you about myself and my
two ferrets :) I am 25 and married, Phil & Lil are our two ferrets,
but we also have a chinese pug named Wrangler.
We bought Phil and Lil a couple of years ago from a young girl that
was going away to college and could no longer have them. They are
generally both very active and spontaneous, which of course we love.
Sunday night I found our male ferret (Phil) lying in the bottom of
their cage. I reached in to pick him up just to love on him as I do
many times during a week and he tensed all up and started shaking. I
immediately set him down on the floor at which point he started to
try to get away but I noticed he was dragging both of his back legs
and appeared to be very tender to the touch in his tummy area.
Luckily my friends were here and offered to assist me in taking him
to the pet E.R. that we have here in Salt Lake City. Upon arrival
over there he seemed to just want to be held and that was it. When
the vet finally came in to look at him, we discovered that his
bladder was very swollen and so they did a catheder to see if they
could unblock it. Which they were able to do. Upon unblocking it we
found that his bladder was full of blood, puss and urine. Let me
tell you how horrible I felt at this time. I did not know that
something so horrible could happen to my baby.
The vet looked at the fluid that he extracted from Phil and said
that there were alot of tri-something crystals and cells. I asked if
it oculd have something to do with the fact that I had switched them
from their normal ferret food to cat food within the last month. He
said that it should have had an effect, that there did not appear to
be any "bad" cells to alert him to something us, but that there was
some obvious irritation that had occured and then further more
blockage that caused him not to be able to expel the fluids from his
bladder.
The vet gave me antibiotics for Phil, Clavanox?, that I have to give
him orally twice a day. I have discovered that he does not have much
interest in eating, but I can get him to take water out of the
syringe that I give him his medication from and out of his water
bottle in his cage. So this appears to be an improvement since he
was severly dehydrated when we went to the vets.
I guess I am just looking for feedback to see if anyone else has
experienced this same problem or if anyone has any ideas on how I
can help my baby.
Thanks,
Danielle & Phil (he's curled up in a towel on my lap as I type)