From:
nsimmonswsu@yahoo.com
Date: 2004-01-17 02:41:42 UTC
Subject: Help - Vet doesn't know what's wrong
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <19157736.1074308446581.JavaMail.nobody@chromium.smartgroups.com>
I am so scared that I am going to lose my oldest ferret. He is currently in the
YYY here at ZZZ, in XXX. His Dr. is Dr. AAAAAA, DVM (she is awesome). She
does not know what is going on with him, & she has consulted with others
(doctors I assume) but no one else knows either. Sid is an albino, we think he's
about 8 years old, & I have had him for 6-7 years, since he was rescued from
some friends of one of my daughters who gave him drugs & neglected him. He
already has insulinoma, diagnosed about 4 months ago, & has been on
Prednisone (0.5 ml daily), & done quite well with it. But over last weekend he
couldn't keep food down & had diarrhea for a few days (he frequently gets that,
he is a sugar junkie).
Anyway we brought him up to the hospital in XXX Sunday, & the on-call vet
didn't know much about ferrets, & wanted to wait for his Dr. to come in on
Monday, though he did talk to her by phone several times on Sunday. They did
an xray, & an ultrasound & biopsy as well, thinking he had lymphoma or other
tumors, which the radiologists read on Monday with AAAA, & they determined
he had some large mass in his abdomen, & he still couldn't eat anything, even
water without wretching. I will do anything to save him, so I insisted we try
surgery, to at least give him a chance to see if we could fix whatever is wrong; I
was not ready to let him go, & they didn't even know for sure what was wrong,
but they thought it was his spleen that was so enlarged, or possibly lymphoma.
He had his own surgeon, & came through surgery ok, but they could NOT find
any tumor or growth, NOTHING to explain what everyone saw on the xray. They
took biopsies of a couple 'spots' on his liver & his pancreas, but nothing was
even enlarged enough to justify removing it - neither his spleen, or part of
pancreas. I'm not a doctor so I may mess up a few terms. the biopsy says he
has fat on/in his liver, & also some infection, which Dr. AAAA said could be
caused by some process that started when he quit eating & got diarrhea, but
there's no cancer anywhere. The biopsies showed fatty deposits on the liver, &
spots of infection. He's back on his prednisone & his blood sugar is pretty
normal. He doesn't have a fever.
He has a "J-tube" in his intestines to feed him with, & has been in the ICU since
after he got out of surgery Tuesday late afternoon. He actually ate a tiny bit of
very soft food yesterday, but she cut down his IV fluids & didn't give him any
liquid nutrition stuff last night until they could do an xray this morning, to see
if the tube had come loose. He is still urinating & pooping, but it's diarrhea,
which they also said will happen with this liquid nutrition he gets through the
tube. The xray showed the tube was still in place, & he gets his medicine
through that tube also.
He seemed to be pulling through, then when i went to see him again last night,
his abdomen is all swollen up & puffy, & Dr. AAAA worried it my be peritonitis.
She has been treating him with 2 antibiotics, very powerful ones she said,
broad & narrow? spectrum, ones that will kill the stuff that could cause
peritonitis,as well as infection in his lungs. They drew a little fluid off his one
lung this morning, which seemed to help a little, but she has no idea what
started this whole problem, & she has been with him around the clock almost
daily. I have the greatest respect for her, & yes she's a ferret specialist, &
obviously cares very much. Can you PLEASE PLEASE help me??? I have complete
confidence in Dr. AAAAA, & feel very lucky to have her on this case. But I am SO
scared I am going to lose him, & I know she is doing all she can. When I called
her a little while ago to check on Sid, she said he threw up his medicine, & she
had NO IDEA had he could get it up from his intestines into his stomach to
throw it up, but he did. They are running more tests, I don't even know what.
His liverenzymes are elevated but that could be caused by getting 'sick' & not
eating or drinking for the first few days. I go see him twice a day, & he looked
so aweful today. I've been emailing all over to see if anyone can help. Norma
[Moderator's note: editted to meet the rule of not identifying a practise or vet in
conjunction with a a case being handled by the vet or practise.]
End of ferrethealth Digest
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