From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2007-04-08 18:09:54 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Re: sudden weight gain/risks of exploratories
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
I loved your post, April.
Each case has to be decided on its own merits.
We always have pre-op CBC and Chemistry Panel blood tests done because the results
from those can give hints of when surgery might not be a best approach.
For older ones or ones with other reasons to do so we also have the heart imaged
beforehand.
Those things reduce surgical risk.
Also reducing surgical risk is to let the surgeon chose which is the best way to approach
the surgery. I have known people who felt that they HAD to absolutely insist on
cryosurgery for adrenal tumors even when the vet knew professionally from long
experience once in that standard surgery with a scalpel would be a far better approach for
that ferret.
Those things said, when push comes to shove at times risks must be taken. Several of
ours through the 26 years having fallen into that category, but four stand out, esp. two
heart ones. We've had one with known cardiomyopathy and one with Complete A/V Node
Block undergo surgery. The first would have died within days from liver cysts without
surgery if the grande mal convulsions she was having from her insulinoma didn't kill her
on top of her heart disease. The second was a late life rescue who had insulinoma which
may have been the cause of the Node Block to begin with. It was in a bad location and
could not be fully removed but the pancreatic debulking and her heart meds got her
around 9 good months. Both were very risky surgeries and both survived with more good
months ahead of them thanks to the risk taken. The other two had GI malformations and
they were always tricky to repair whenever things went really wrong so we always knew
that risk beforehand. (For both of those the conditions finally got to the stage where the
vets decreed "No more ops on those areas." One survived to almost 9 despite her
problem, and the other finally had his stomach shred and died at the age of 6.)
We've never lost a ferret on the operating table, but had one who turned out to be so full
of lymphoma that she was closed right up and died that same day. She was able to
respond to us despite high levels of pain meds and let herself drift off even before her
mercy shot could have taken hold once she said goodbye to Steve and me.
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