From:
"Sukie Crandall"
Date: 2009-08-15 05:47:09 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] update on Whizbang
To: ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com
For those who already have enough to remember:
Whizbang (6 yrs) had a lot of problems which appeared like
adrenal disease but were not adrenal disease. In fact, her
adrenals both came out cleanly and the second one was
taken out months ago in case it was the cause of symptoms
whereas the left one had come out a few years ago and had
mild hyperplasia in the path report (but that was from a
commercial lab which has had recent screw-ups so I have
to wonder if that adrenal really had any problems given what
was found on this surgery).
Finally, when checking for possible stump pyometra
what appears to have been a missed and hidden ovary
was found. She was spayed at a farm 6 years ago.
At the time of her surgery our primary vet (There are
three in his practice who can treat ferrets.) had never
seen a vulva so large. As he put it, "This thing could be
another limb" and it did in fact often touch the floor so was
very hard to keep clean, uninjured, and splinter-free. Okay,
impossible to keep in those states. We were very worried
that her chronic infections there might lead to sepsis and
they certainly undermined her quality of life.
She is now 8 days post-surgery. We are awaiting pathology
reports but her vulva by two days age had lost at least 1/3
of its size and had become not much larger than Pivot's was
when she was in full heat.
The spots her vulva was getting were blood clots and for
a while those were working to the surface and her skin
was friable as her vulva began shrinking so she had some
light, repeated surface bleeding and associated discomfort.
That is resolving nicely.
At this point it is wrinkled and somewhat floppy with all that
stretched tissue but it is slowly and progressively getting smaller.
Measurements currently are noticeably different every two days,
with one of her measurements being 1/8" smaller Friday than
on Wednesday, so you can tell there are real differences.
It is much paler, too.
She needs two antibiotics right now: Clavamox and Biaxin, but
they are doing the trick and her nodes which had been up from
persistent infections was way, way down -- actually to normal sizes
in some locations and almost there for others.
She's back to eating kibble for most of her food and is acting very
happy but not overly active which is great because it is too early
for extreme activity still. We kept back some of her pain med in
case she gets too active too soon to prevent her causing herself
injury.
So, at this point we wait for the pathology report. I saw what was
removed: a tiny and asymptomatic insulinoma that was starting,
what looks like a small sister spleen, and the clearly glandular tissue
which sure did look like an ovary looks.
The direction of changes, with her comfort, her vulvar size, the
integrity of her tissues, and her node size are all good so far.
------------------------------------
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