From:
russians_mom
Date: 2002-06-04 21:50:00 UTC
Subject: Q re: heart murmur and tumor on inside of eyelid
My Kodiak was in to see the vet in January due to weight loss and
some lethargia. Dr. found fluid around his heart and put him on
lasix. In April, Kodi wasn't better and had begun to have very fast
respiration, so I took him back to my vet. She said he had a heart
murmur of 4/6, although he did not have any heart murmur at all in
January. Is it unusual for a heart murmur to become that bad in only
4 months? What would cause one to get so bad so quickly...just being
older? Kodi is at least 5-6 years of age. He is also ADV positive
and had an electrophoresis done which showed a ratio of 12% gamma
globulin to total protein...up from 8% the previous year.
Samson had an abscess in his right ear a few weeks ago. He had been
lethargic for a few weeks with only a slightly low glucose reading.
I "assumed" he was depressed because his buddy, Kodiak, did not feel
like playing with him any longer. They used to chase each other and
wrestle all over the house. Every day, there was at least one really
rough,"fun" fight. I finally noticed there was blood in his ear and
a fairly large lump behind it. Dr. "drained" the abscess and put
him on antibiotics. The abscess cleared up completely except for a
small amount of calcification in his ear. She checked his ear canal
(today when I took him back in) but did not see any problems (where
the abscess might have gone into his brain before we caught it). Sam
still has not gotten his energy back and is showing slight
neurological signs, i.e. head tremors and, just today, a couple of
head twitches. I also noticed that it appeared he couldn't open his
right eye as wide as his left. We did x-rays which did not show
anything and took blood for a complete work up. What Dr. did find
is a tumor growing on the inside of Sam's upper eyelid. She removed
what she could of it (she said it was quite large and she couldn't
remove it all without removing at least 3/4 of his eyelid) to send
off for a biopsy. Has anyone seen a tumor in that area? If it is
malignant and we decide to remove most of his eyelid (so that he
cannot close that eye), is that O.K. for a ferret? Do they "have" to
close their eyes part of the time? I'm also wondering what the
chances are that this tumor is causing his neurological problems
(which are not severe at this poing). If it turns out the be the
type that metastasizes, would his brain be a likely spot? I know
it's too soon to worry...it will be several days before the results
are back in...and there may be a good chance that it's benign...but
it's hard not to try to prepare myself for the worst. Samson is also
ADV positive.
Thanks for any help...
Judy