From:
Melissa
Date: 2003-07-19 02:03:58 UTC
Subject: Re: [ferrethealth] Refusing Kibble w/ Lymphoma / Congestion in the lung
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <20030719020358.62586.qmail@web14403.mail.yahoo.com>
--- Quarrius@aol.com wrote:
>
> Haggis has lymphoma. ...breathing shallow. was able
to see congestion in the lung...his right lung is
filled with some kind of fluid..... I opted against
chemo for him but started him on pred. 0.3ml 2x/day.
That was three weeks ago. He has since been upped to
0.4ml and again to 0.5ml....[Breathing] is more
labored now and less lkike a pant. has anyone had
this in their ferrets that have gotten lymphoma?
I almost hate to relate this because it is pretty
grim. But maybe it will help to avoid future
suffering...If you don't truly want to know, maybe you
should not read this. My ferret Buttons passed away
from lymphoma that first affected the lungs and
internal organs (as opposed to affecting the lymph
system, as is more ususal) in February 2003. There
were these disentigrating lymph nodes in her chest
that caused her lungs to fill with clear fluid and
blood, and the entire course of the disease ran in
well under a month from the first noticable symptoms
of labored breathing.
Buttons had a full workup and teeth cleaning in early
January and was totally fine, then seemed to slow down
quite a bit towards the end of the month. She started
panting over the 1st weekend of February. I took her
to the vet, x-ray showed congestion, then treated w/
lasix for a week, did another x-ray and bloodwork. The
second x-ray showed a lot of degeneration (shrinkage)
of internal organs, bloodwork showed lots of
lymphocytes. The vet tried to tap the fluid twice
over that week to get her some relief, but it was in
her lungs and chest cavity, and there was just too
much of it.
We did try pred, but not chemo, as the vet felt it
was so advanced that at the most it would get her
another 1 - 2 months, and this particular ferret
despised being fussed with medically. My vet said
that in general, in her experience, they get either a
couple of weeks or a few months. After the second
x-ray (about a week after the initial very labored
breathing episode), the vet said that if she would
eat, she'd have up to a couple of weeks, and if not,
she would only have a couple of days. She didn't eat,
and at the end of that 48 hours her condition was so
poor that I had her helped over.
This came on extremely quickly -- the panting started
over a weekend, and she passed away about 10 days
later. I did give her injectible pain meds for the
last couple of days so that she would not be in pain.
Also, for the last few days I had to clean her
nostrils every few hours, because the fluid from her
lungs was coming up her nose and it would harden in
the corners and restrict her already labored
breathing.
I am sorry to relate such a grim prognosis. But your
ferret seems to be responding better to the pred than
mine did, so maybe you will be fortunate and have more
time and better success than we did. If you give
soup, try to make sure the ferret's nose is clean,
even in the little corners, because when they have
trouble breathing, that can clog the nostrils too. I
really hope you have better luck than we did.
Best Wishes,
Melissa
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