From:
FerretGM@yahoo.com
Date: 2003-08-04 16:24:02 UTC
Subject: Mishka has been helped to pass over
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <1116831.1060014242471.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Mishka had gotten much worse in the past month, and I took him to our vet t=
o be euthanized this morning. He had been steadily losing control of his b=
ack end, and for the past few days, would fall asleep in about 30 seconds o=
n the rare occasions on which he'd try to investigate something. It might =
have been possible to keep him around a bit longer with medication adjustme=
nts, but I really felt that he was simply worn-out from his very lengthy il=
lness and wanted to be at peace. He was facing liver failure and kidney im=
plications (from periodic prostate enlargment, despite a very high dose of =
lupron), and he just wanted to be left alone (no petting or anything), whic=
h was atypical.
For future reference, he developed insulinoma in November, 2001 -- so he ha=
d 20 months from then, which I guess is about typical. He was almost 7 1/2=
. We did a surgical removal of some nodules in March (when trying to remov=
e his right adrenal, unsuccessfully -- it had invaded his liver) but it rea=
lly didn't seem to affect his insulinoma much at all. He had been on daily=
antibiotics (metronidazole for about 5 months, then alternating between a =
month of biaxin and a month of metronidazole. This last month, he had both =
metronidazole and amoxi) for about 9 months for symptoms similar to IBD -- =
abdominal contractions sometimes leading to violent diahrrea and vomiting, =
and a very bad odor to his stool. I think that his hind-end weakness start=
ed at the end of june or early july. For the past week or so, he'd been ha=
ving "quivering" in his back end. We'd doubled his pred dose in early july=
, but that only helped for a short time. For what it's worth, I was hand-f=
eeding him baby food 5 times a day for the past 6 weeks -- before that, it =
was 4x/day for about the last 16 months. He had also had a back molar remo=
ved and a very large nasty mast cell tumor taken off his neck since the sur=
gery in March. =
Thanks you all for your help with all my questions throughout his illness.
Best regards,
Melissa
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