From:
tlcoffey@sbcglobal.net
Date: 2005-07-04 05:45:57 UTC
Subject: Need Diagnostic Assistance
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <136905.1120455957021.JavaMail.root@thallium.smartgroups.com>
Teddy was born in 1999. He came from a private breeder. He has always been a big boy, weighing from 5lbs to 6 lbs depending on the seaon (he's German).
About a year ago he started losing a little weight. Since then, I had noticed some more weight loss but it did not register how
much weight he had actually lost until I took him in on an emergency visit to the vet. I had come home and he was gagging, choking, vomiting large blobs of foamy saliva, and drooling. He was very wobbly and sort of incoherent. He became coherent shortly after he stopped vomiting and gagging. He does not have unsupervised run of the house because he has a thing for plastic bags.
At the vet, she weighed him and he is down to 2 1/2 pounds. She did an x-ray and while she did not see any obstructions, she did say that one of his kidneys and spleen are enlarged. She did blood work and said that his blood work came back odd. White count OK. Red count slightly high. Slightly anemic, showed dehydration, creatinine was elevated, and she said something about the BUN.
I don't see how he can be dehydrated. He has water available at all times. I don't understand the weight loss because he has food available at all times. I am still hoping that it is some kind of partial obstruction.
I got Laxa-tone this afternoon and gave it to him and he has had numerous BMs. Some are very runny. Some seem normal. Some seem pretty dry. I've noticed, even before now, that his stools have become "grainy" looking.
Tonight I noticed that his stools have small blobs of blackish stuff and the color, instead of being standard ferret poo brown, a single stool will range from light tan to greenish brown to reddish brown with the small black blobs.
I picked through several of his stools (I know, gross. I was trying to see if he was passing anything) and I noticed that there were discolored chunks of litter inside the stool. I use the super absorbent crystals - the rough, chunky kind, not the smooth pellets. He loves to play and root in it, especially when he was younger. The pellet form of crystals bounce and made a huge mess. The chunky crystals don't bounce.
The vet said to reduce his protein, try and get him to eat more and put him on vitamins. Easier said that done. Picky little guy will only eat ferret chow (he's not too particular here - but the vet has said the protein is too high), one or two kinds of cat chow, and Captain Crunch cereal. He won't touch "Duck Soup". I'm still experimenting on a Duck Soup variation he will eat.
Anyway, the vet is thinking it may be lymphoma and she is starting to talk about doing an exploratory. I saw the x-rays and I didn't see any suspicious opaque areas. I've been looking for Dr. Williams because I would really like a second or for Dr. Williams to consult with my vet before doing an exploratory.
Anything would be helpful.
Teresa (and Teddy)