From:
"cherylnj81"
Date: 2009-01-27 20:07:30 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Ferret with mass near her stomach
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
Ferret with mass near her stomach =96 what would you do?
I have a ferret, Lucy, who has been in very good health for all of her
almost 7 years (she will be 7 in March). She has been sleeping a bit
more these last few months, but I attributed that to it being Winter
and also age. She still eats great, poops, has a beautiful thick
albino coat, and likes to play and romp around on the bed. She is not
on any medications, eats a mixture of kibbles, and shares a plate of
baby food twice a day with our 4 other ferrets. Yesterday, I saw her
visiting a couple different litter boxes right after the other, so I
decided to give her some ferret lax. She also had ear mites recently,
so bad that there was blood on the q-tip when I cleaned them. She has
been treated for them.=20
This morning, when I went to wake her up for her breakfast, I put her
down on the ground and she just kind of laid down instead of going for
the food. I was really worried, this is very unusual. Finally I put
her right up to the plate and she ate it, but even after she was kind
of standing around looking glassy eyed, eyes-half-shut and just acting
like she didn't feel well. She was even having a hard time staying on
her hind legs. With them slipping out from under her. The first
thing I did was check her blood glucose, but it was 108 so that was
fine. I decided to take her to the vet at that point. When we went,
she was very sensitive around her stomach area upon palpitation and
her lungs sounded congested, so the vet took several x-rays and some
blood work which we will get back tommorrow. He decided the lungs
were okay, but noticed two masses, one by her stomach and one by her
hind-end lymph nodes. The one by her stomach is big enough to be
moving her stomach out of its usual place. He then ultrasounded her,
and definetly decided she had two masses, which he said he felt like
they were `cysts' but could be lymphoma or lymphocarcoma. He also saw
some kidney stones and gave me Clavamox for them and for in case she
has an infection that is causing the lymph nodes to go crazy like this. =
I have a couple choices of what to do now, according to the vet.=20
I can
a) Have him do surgery to take a biopsy and see if he can even try to
remove the mass (at least the one by her stomach), although it may be
too close/surrounding a main artery which would not be good. The
risks are, she is older now, about to be 7, and there are inherent
risks with any surgery, plus if he tries to remove the tumor, she can
bleed out or if its fluid-filled, it can rupture into her abdomen.
Also, my worst fear, is that he will open her up and she will be
filled with tumors, even though we did not see that in the ultrasound.
Or, that she will die during surgery when she could have at least
lived a couple more months with lymphosarcoma or something.
b) Start her on aggressive prednisolone and chemotherapy. This might
shrink the tumors, according to what kind they are, but he said
ferrets don't always do well on chemotherapy. I wanted to try this
for 2-4 weeks and see if the masses shrink, but, if chemotherapy
doesn't work, she might be too fragile from it to undergo a surgery if
needed.=20
c) Aspirate the mass, but the vet said this he most hesitates to do
because if it is a cyst with liquid in it, it can leak inside all over
her abdomen and cause infection.
d) See if the antibiotics perk her up (maybe the weakness is from the
kidney stones?) and do nothing for a while.
So I was wondering, those being my choices, what anyone else would do
or if they have an even better option I would love to hear it. Lucy
is my first ferret (my `firstborn') and I have to admit, even though
its mean, she is my absolute favorite. I would be torn apart if I
lost her, especially prematurely.=20
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