From:
"innerharmony"
Date: 2006-12-09 01:09:17 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Insulinoma and adrenal surgery for Neo - perplexing problems
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Our ferret Neo, who I have written about here several times in the
last 2 months, went in to have a large tumor on his pancreas removed,
as well as his enlarged left adrenal gland. The surgery was Monday
morning, and the pathology report on both was that they were benign.
The vet felt that the surgery on both went very well, and during the
surgery he did a careful probing and feeling of the rest of the
pancreas to try to get an idea if Neo also had smaller tumors. He
said that the rest of the pancreas felt soft and smooth and seemed to
be tumor free, so he only took out the large exterior tumor and the
tissue adjacent to it. During exploratory surgery at the same time he
said that he felt something in Neo's stomach that seemed to be fairly
soft, but definitely that there was something there. He chose not to
cut open his stomach at the time, as he didn't want to overly stress
Neo during the fairly long surgery.
Initially Neo seemed to be coming around well, and later Monday his
blood glucose went up to about 100. It had consistently been in the
30's for a long time before the surgery, even when he was on
dexamethasone and diazoxide. Later Monday night his BG went up to
around 200, and we thought he might be headed toward a possible
temporary diabetic state. All seemed to make sense, but since then,
not much does.
Since Tuesday morning Neo's BG levels have ranged from 33 to 55,
never higher. We cannot figure out why this is the case. Also of
note is that his potassium level is very low. Neo's appetite varies.
Sometimes he'll eat a little, but other times, like this morning, the
smell and just a little taste of his regular 'soup' made him vomit.
After the vomiting episode early this morning he did eat his soup from
a syringe three different times during the day, and never once acted
as if he were ready to vomit. However, the last time was 1:30 this
afternoon, and when we went to feed him at 6:30 this evening, he went
into vomit-like convulsions, but was fortunately able to keep from
actually throwing up. So, I obviously did not pursue feeding him at
that point. Since then he's been zonked out.
Does anyone have any ideas as to why his BG levels would remain so
low after the surgery? My theories are that either he still has small
tumors left in the pancreas, or else his body isn't getting enough
food to bring up the BG levels. The other possibility is that maybe
the thing that the vet felt in his stomach is another tumor, or else
some kind of other mass that is throwing his BG level out of whack and
now making him nauseous. But, all along before the surgery Neo was
eating a lot and his stools and urine were plentiful and normal. I'm
just grasping at possibilities at this point, and if anyone with more
experience or more ideas could put them on the table, I'd really
appreciate it.
We've had to put him back on the azium and we'll see if that helps,
but things just aren't adding up at all. The little guy is just 4
years old, and we thought that the surgery would give him a fair
amount of more quality life, but so far he's just really hurting and
listless and not doing well at all.
Jeff inner.harmony@sbcglobal.net
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