From:
Ann Haager
Date: 2005-09-22 16:59:10 UTC
Subject: Calix is sick - still trying to find out why
To: ferrethealth@smartgroups.com
Message-ID: <32956236.1127415139211.JavaMail.nobody@magnesium.smartgroups.com>
Hi everyone,
I'm knew to this list, although I'm not new to the ferret world. I am
still a novice, but I've seen enough in this last year or so to know I
don't want to see anymore. First, I'm going to tell you a quick
background of me and my family and then I'll get to the topic. My
husband and I are currently owned by 10 fuzzies, 2 dogs, and 1 cat. We
lost Xanth (ferret) a year ago last April to adrenal disease, then this
past January we lost Pixie (ferret) to lymphoma. Xanth we caught and had
surgery done and he lived for 10 months after that, but we were still
trying to find out what Pixie had when she died. The vet didn't know
what she had until he did the necropsy. Anyway, if you want to see
pictures (cuz I know I love looking at ferrety pictures) you can go my
site at [Moderator's Note: Address removed because ot sales aspect; those
interested can write to poster directly] Pixie and Xanth are on the front page, the
others you'll need to go to the gallery.
Now, about Calix...Friday the 16th I noticed he was having trouble
walking, it came on all of a sudden because Thursday he was a normal
happy ferret. I think because of his trouble walking he also was tired
more (if you fell every time you tried to walk wouldn't you be tired and
unhappy? I would) So he slept a lot. He wasn't eating or drinking either
so we started feeding him baby food. On Saturday we took him to the vet
to get his blood glucose levels tested and they came back at 140, so
after having almost all the symptoms of insulinoma (which I'm sorry I
didn't mention them all here) his bg was normal. Well, it's higher than
what the books said were normal, but the vet wasn't worried about it. So
he took some blood and sent us home with an antibiotic that also helped
clear up diarrhea (amforol). It has helped a little, but not completely
and now he's going off of it tomorrow.
The vet called back on the 19th with results saying that all organ
function looked fine, white blood cell count was low and had him
worried. He said it pointed to leukemia, but he wanted to get more
results so he sent more blood to a pathologist. That came back on the
21st normal. He said nothing pointed to cancer or tumors, but it did
look like a viral infection. So he told me his plan. He wanted to put
him on another anitibiotic for 10 days (amoxicillin) and if that doesn't
help any he wants to do a biopsy of the spleen (oh yeah, Calix's spleen
is enlarged and hard), BUT if Calix gets worse in any way he wants to do
an exploratory surgery. So we picked up the second antibiotic this
morning and started giving it to him. After the feeding though (before
we picked up the med) he was all itchy like our Pixie was before she
passed away. He hasn't been abnormally itchy until just after breakfast
this morning when he couldn't walk for all the itching he was doing
until he finally went to sleep. But the vet says not to worry about it
right now, let's concentrate on the antiobiotics. So basically we're
waiting to see if they do anything.
I think that covers everything, I may have skipped something so if you
need to ask questions, please feel free to do so. I have also decided to
just list all his symptoms below.
hind leg weakness (falling over)
staring into space, dazed and confused (he will even attack other
ferrets if they scare him "awake")
diarrhea (but I think that's from changing his food since he won't eat
kibble on his own)
orange-red poopies that are not completely solid
sleeping ALL the time until we go in to feed him (if we wave his toy in
front of him he'll stash it quickly then go right back to bed)
enlarged spleen
other symptoms that he did sporadically:
pawing at his mouth when nothing was stuck
vomiting
blindness (ran into things head first)
Calix is such a sweet boy. He used to be a blaze, now he looks more like
a DEW. He's deaf and I thought he might have been going blind when he
started crashing into things on Saturday. Because of his inability to
walk Friday and Saturday, he would tend to lay in his poop (which was
horrid diarrhea) so we had to wash him up a couple of times each day. It
was so sad I cried every time. I've been highly stressed over this
situation and it wasn't until yesterday that it really let up. Please go
look at his pictures, he's the cutest little boy. I'm going to upload
some more today/tonight so check back until you see a folder just for
him in my gallery. Thanks so much for everyone's help, past and future.
And thanks for praying for my little boy.
In Christ,
Ann Haager (& hubby - Adrian)
~Ferrets: Lupi, Dewey, Rainbow, Skittles, Calix, Pearl, Snap, Oreo,
Gandalf & Samweis
~~Rainbow Bridge: Xanth & Pixie
~Dogs: Shadow & Onyx
~Cat: Zoe