From:
"Claire van den Broek"
Date: 2008-09-22 03:36:25 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] What could my baby have died of?
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
[Medical details at bottom]
On Valentine's Day this year we had to put my beloved baby IJsbrand to
sleep. At the time, we decided not to do an extensive autopsy, because
it wouldn't have helped him either way, and we couldn't face dragging
the ordeal out any further.
It's now been over half a year, and I still think about my baby
constantly and I can't stop crying for him, especially when I see
other ferrets that remind me of him, or when I try to tell people
about him. I dream about him a lot too; sometimes that he's alive
again, sometimes about him dying, other times he's dead in my dreams,
and I know it, yet he comes back to me, for only a few hours. It's
especially hard because other people don't really seem to care,
especially now that a few months have passed, because they saw him as
"just a ferret".
I still wonder if there was anything we could've done, if we'd been
able to figure out what was wrong with him. Our vet is the ferret
expert in our city, and he has hundreds of ferret 'clients', so I
guess if he couldn't help him, nobody else here could have either.
Here's what happened:
IJsbrand was nearly 6 years old.
He'd had a few problems in the past, but nothing that seemed at all
related to this episode. In the past he had lost a lot of weight
suddenly while in boarding (the boarding place is great, and has been
wonderful for my other ferret, and everyone else's that I know of, so
that's not a problem), and he would generally eat a lot less and
become lethargic and sometimes dehydrated when I was away for some
time. We finally put it down to him getting very homesick, with
resulting problems coming from not eating/drinking.
This time when he got sick, he was at home. One evening, I walked up
to his cage, and suddenly found him lying awkwardly folded around the
stairs from the cage into his run, looking sad, as if he had fallen
off them, and couldn't get up. (They're not high, and he could not
have fallen far)
I lifted him out of the cage immediately and sat down with him to see
what was wrong. As soon as he tried to walk, I realized his hind legs
were not moving. I put him on the ground, to see if he could walk at
all, and he started rapidly dragging his back end across the carpet.
So he was alert, no clear signs of pain, no dehydration, no lethargy
whatsoever, just the weak back legs.
(I did not want to take him to the emergency vet hospital, because
last time he had worsened significantly there overnight, when they had
failed to feed him while sick, because they thought he wasn't eating
anyway (even though he HAD been eating, which I told him). Once we fed
him, and got him to our vet that time, he immediately improved. So
basically, I don't trust them.)
6AM the next morning, we took him to our vet. He agreed the situation
was not looking good, but he said we should do blood tests, X-Rays,
etc. They did all that right away. From what I recall, there was
nothing too noteworthy on the blood test, minor anomalies at most. The
X-Rays showed nothing obvious either, with the exception of a small
spot somewhere around his spine, which the doctor said could be a
bruising or pooling of blood. He wondered if perhaps IJsbrand had
sustained a back injury that had caused the paralysis. We can't figure
out how that might have happened though, as he could not have fallen
far, and we suspected he was lying as he was, around his stairs,
because he had tried to climb down AFTER the 'paralysis' set in, and
had rolled down.
The vet decided to treat it as if it were a spinal injury. He said IJs
was not in a good enough condition for any kind of surgery. The
medicine however did nothing, which became clear and undeniable the
next day, when he just lay sadly in his cage at the vet's, raising his
head now and then, but no longer running around. Finally at the end of
the day, the vet said this was not working, and we probably needed to
come in the next morning to have him put to sleep.
So we came in on the morning of Valentine's Day, and said goodbye to
our sweet baby. I think my husband cried even more than I did. I tried
to at least not cry while IJs was still with us, as I was trying to
keep him at ease. IJsbrand was cremated with dignity a few days later.
They made a little pawprint of IJs in clay, with some of his hairs on
it, and his name. Somehow it never seems to get easier though... maybe
if I had some idea of what happened? Probably won't make a difference,
but who knows...
Here's what I have in details:
Age: 6
Sex: Male
History: Some problems while boarding, nothing seemingly related. No
prior weakness at all in legs.
Symptoms: Sudden near-paralysis (he could move his toes, and his legs
felt a little cold, indicating a problem with blood circulation),
sudden inability to release urine/feces, initially alert and active,
after 24 hours he became lethargic. No clear signs on an X-Ray, except
a possible vague spot around the spine (blood/bruising?). Nothing
noteworthy on a blood test from what I can recall. Stopped eating at
the end of Day 1.
Anybody have any suggestions, or similar experiences? So far, all I've
seen that could possibly be applicable, is 'saddle thrombosis', or
perhaps a spinal injury somehow?
Thank you for sharing your expertise.
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