Message Number: SG14176 | New FHL Archives Search
From: meltodandcats@juno.com
Date: 2005-06-01 04:41:56 UTC
Subject: Re: URGENT: Need Help for VERY sick ferret post insulinoma surgery
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <5747816.1117600916088.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>

Hello, Thank you to all the wonderful people who emailed me with suggestions, thoughts and or prayers regarding my little one, Fred. I am sorry it took until now to write this. I have been crying pretty much nonstop since Sunday - well, actually Friday when this tragedy all began to develop.

This comes with a VERY HEAVY BROKEN heart with a HUGE VOID!!! We had to help Fred to the bridge about 6:15 Sunday night (May 29). We went to pick him up and he was totally not there. We planned to take him home and nurse the best we could to see if he would respond better being in familiar territory and loving touch, plus no one was with him 24/7 at the vet hospital as they did not have "critical care". We were going to take him to a more ferret knowledgeable vet Tues. However, it appears that he slipped into a coma. He stopped peeing and pooping on his own. They had to use a tube to feed him as he stopped swallowing. He totally had no knowledge that we were even there. I knew in my heart my Fred was gone. The perplexing thing is all his "vitals and etc" were normal, ie. blood count, pulse, gum color, temp, glucose fluctuated more than it should have being he was on dextrose drip, but ranged from 80 to 120.

I will miss the way Fred would follow me around and look up at me with his big brown eyes dressed in his chocolate fur coat. He was a momma's boy!! I knew what each of his looks meant, one meant he wanted his pred and another meant give me my chicken/turkey baby food NOW and another meant GOT RAISIN? He would slip on the linoleum flooring since he was wobbly most of the last year or so of his life (even after his surgery last May, 2004). He never asked for much!! He would get so excited and just bounce around with a look of pure joy when we would bring him in the living room and put him on the carpet. Oh that brought such happiness to me to see him so happy and his frail little body so full of life. I bought a throw rug for the kitchen just the other week and the look on his face and that happy happy war dance he did when he 1st got on it brought tears to my eyes that a little thing like that would make him so happy! And now he is gone! I can't grasp that!

How do you go on when you have that special one who takes a big piece of you with them!! Don't get me wrong, I love all 7 remaining ferts! But Fred and I had a bond so strong between us. Not to get weird, but it was almost like we were soul mates. And he took my soul with him on Sunday!!

My baby is in the ground. I just want to go out to my back yard and dig his frail little body up and take him to someone and have them fix him up!! I made a little care packet for him to take with him on his big journey..I put raisins, a few kibble, a ball made of yarn and stuffed with poly-fill, and foam peanuts (the biodegradable kind of course). I kept the same packet for me to put in his memory box (minus the food items). I might be crazy, but I just had to cut some of his hair off to keep for me. I hope he didn't mind. Oh and I put a brand new unopened jar of turkey baby food in with him. He should be set for the transition.

I brought him home and let his 7 remaining cage mates (including one brother and one sister) see him and say their good byes. Fred was one of 4 siblings we adopted from a local shelter June 2002 and they estimated their age to be 3 or 4 at that time. So he was probably 6 or 7 now. I must have laid on the floor with him for about half an hour to 45 minutes, just stroking his hair and crying my eyes out and holding him to my chest and begging him to just wake up!! I should be happy for him for he is pain free now and he is with his brother, Beethoven who went to the bridge Mar 26, 2004.

Fred has his wings now and will no longer have another blood prick or surgery or injections or yucky meds. And I no longer have my little buddy. We would play games when I medicated him. He loved some of the meds, but would make these faces pretending he hated it. And some of the meds he did hate - so much so that he would claw the inside of his mouth. I HATED giving him those meds probably more than he hated taking them. He was good at the prayer clasping of the hands thing where he would flick the syringes back at me. Sometimes I got lucky enough to wear his meds as he spit them back at me. I miss my little goober!!

That is all for now as I can't stop crying. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers - EVERYONE!
Melanie