From:
jcrumpton@berney.com
Date: 2003-05-14 20:19:16 UTC
Subject: RE: Goodbye to Samson
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <866150.1052943556951.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Thanks for all the feedback.
At the time of the original post, Samson was at home. I let him go Tuesday morning. I'm not sure I will be able to do that next time. Regardless of my intentions, I don't feel right about it. In retrospect, I wish I had just given him something for the pain and let nature run its course.
My vet has done several adrenal operations but has never done an insulinoma. I would have had to drive an hour to Auburn and I don't think Samson would have been up to that.
As for symptoms: he was very lathargic...rarely stood or walked for more than 30 sec or so. his hind legs were not very functional..sometimes he could walk with just a little wobble, other times he couldnt lift himself at all. He shook badly and I don't mean the normal ferret twitch. For the last week he had been wimpering almost continuously.Only his head had a full coat of hair...his body was as smooth as a baby's ....
He was running a fever, we were treating with antibiotics (assuming it was a non-related infection)
In addition, several years ago, he was diagnosed with a "systic kidney" (i'm not really sure what that is but I was assured that it wasn't life threatening) and before that, he had problems that I now think were probably early signs of the insulinoma
He had cataracts and his vision was bad but he could see somewhat.
someone suggested a higher dose and predisilone rather than prednizone (i have no idea on those spellings). Actually, he was taking prednisilone and the dosage was already at 2mg twice dayly...I don't know what the max is but my vet implied that it was already very high. We were able to control the symptoms for nearly a year with 1/2mg twice dayly but about a month ago it just quit working and we increased the dosage several times with no effect.
ok, sorry for rambling on.