Message Number: SG4950 | New FHL Archives Search
From: sleepyferret@mindspring.com
Date: 2003-06-09 19:01:07 UTC
Subject: Cosina's post surgical adhesions
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <6613606.1055207420168.JavaMail.nobody@vanadium.smartgroups.com>

Posting this in case it ever happens to someone else. Last May my first ferret,
Cosina (6yrs) went in for adrenal surgery. The vet (Dr. X) found nodules on her
pancreas and removed them too. Surgery was a complete success. Cosina came
home and within a day or so turned yellow. Back to the vet for fluids and
intensive care to get her back on track. A few days later she was sent home and
in a few more days she was the color of curry and her poop looked like beige/
gray clay. She spent a few days on support and appeared better only to become
the golden girl again within a few days. Prognosis..one day at a time. Ten days
after surgery she was back to the vet and had exploratory surgery. The vet
found that one of the removed nodules on the pancreas had formed adhesions
and blocked the bile duct from the lower end of gall bladder to the intestines.
Having never seen this before, she thought on her feet and improvised a new
bile duct. Dr. X was afraid her new duct might close up. Looking for
suggestions I wrote other ferret vets at the time (with X's blessing) and they
had no suggestions, but were all in awe of what she had done. No one could
think of any tubing small enough to shore up a hole so tiny. Dr. X put Cosina
on .25 Ursodiol once a day to thin the liver bile in case passage narrows.
Prognosis was guarded, but In May it was a year and Cosina (7yrs) is dooking
and still getting into trouble. Dr.X cut the Ursodiol back to .25 every other day
things are still looking good :)

All the best,
Peggy

End of ferrethealth Digest
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