From:
nsimmonswsu@yahoo.com
Date: 2004-01-19 23:21:43 UTC
Subject: Sid
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <11678224.1074555264391.JavaMail.nobody@strontium.smartgroups.com>
Thank you for writing, Dr. Sue Unfortunately, things went very bad yesterday,
& I thought everything was ok, because his vet saw him in the morning, & took
his IV out, his little arm was so bruised up, & she didn't want him to get any
more fluids for the day, & she couldn't even get blood out to check his glucose.
When I went to see him right after noon, I knew he was bad, he was very non-
responsive, & hurt when I moved him around, & his J-tube looked kind of bad,
& I NEVER wanted to keep him going if he would suffer. When I left, I called my
roommate & told her I was going to ask his doc to do another xray or
ultrasound or something to see why he was so bloated, & if he wasn't any
better, I wanted to take him home to let him die in his own bed. Then I got this
feeling I HAD to go over to see him about 6:30, & I went right over there then.
They had just given him some pain medication about 30 minutes before that, &
he was so out of it, & he just kept moaning with every little breath, so I pulled
him out on his little isolet tray, & I knew he was too sick, & i just leaned over &
petted his head & cried & told him it was ok to go.
Then his little arms jerked a couple times, like twitching, & I called the tech
over to see him, & she watched a few minutes & he did it again, so she went &
got the vet & she looked at him & didn't know what was going on, so she called
his doctor. I picked him up in his little blanket & held him, & in a few minutes
he had a massive seizure, it was horrible & the tech came running over & I
handed him to that guy & we put him on the table and held on to him, &
someone went in the other room & brought the vet back in (she was out getting
a syringe with glucose), & she came running back in.
Then they grabbed his little arm & started looking for a vein, & they got a little
tiny bit of blood out & said his blood sugar level was way low, so she put in the
syringe of glucose. They called his vet back & I talked to her, she had been on
the phone with them every 30 minutes (she was out of town), & she said she
didn't know what was wrong with him but he clearly had deteriorated very fast.
I told her I wanted to take him home, & let him die in his own bed, no more
torment, which it clearly was by then. I wouldn't let them try to put in another
iv, but they did draw some fluid out of his abdomen, & he didn't even notice.
His breathing was so labored, & he kept moaning, & I knew it was time.
So I called my roommate who grabbed my two youngest kids & drove up to the
vet hospital (I am in school about 30 miles from home & stay up here during
the week). I just sat & held him & cried, & they got a syringe with a large dose
(overdose) of pain medication ready for me to take home with him because I
wanted so badly to have him go home & be in his own bed.
But while I sat there for the hour waiting for everyone to get there, I kept
looking at him, & he was nearly unconscious, & I knew he didn't know where he
was. So when my kids & roommate got there, we all held him, cried, & said
goodbye, & told him how much we loved him, & then we took him over to the
table, & they put the injection into his belly, & it took maybe a couple minutes
& he died. Of course I can't stop crying, I can't believe I could love an animal so
much, I swear I don't think I could be any more upset if it was one of my kids.
And I never owned Sid, he owned us.
Well anyway I talked to his doctor right after that, & told her to go ahead & do
an autopsy, or I guess it's called a necropsy on animals, because if they can find
ANYTHING out that might help some other ferret out, I want them to do it.
Maybe they will find out what was wrong, but I'm sure his belly was infected
inside, it had to be, it was so much more than just "swelling," or edema. I think
the complications of the surgery eventually killed him, but then maybe it was
whatever he got sick from to begin with. I am trying to pull myself together, I
have such a headache, & I cried until 5:00 this morning before I fell asleep. I
hope I didn't do the wrong thing by trying the surgery, maybe I shouldn't have,
maybe he would have been alright if I hadn't, may not. I feel so much anguish &
miss him so much. So I gotta get a grip. Thank you for listening. Norma
[Moderator's note: sympathy messages without health content should, please,
be sent directly to Norma by selecting her name instead of the arrow on the
website, or by cutting and pasting her address from the digest or individual
posts instead of hitting "reply" --SDC]