From:
"Amy Seyler"
Date: 2011-02-21 17:50:21 UTC
Subject: [ferrethealth] Intestinal lymphoma - treatment/opinion
To: "FHL" <ferrethealth@yahoogroups.com>
Rory is 4 years old. He=E2=80=99s had funky poops off and on for the last 7=
-8 months. He=E2=80=99s been treated for clostridium (which they discovered=
in his stool) periodically and seemed to do fine. He went into the vet in =
early January for his yearly Lupron shot. Had blood work done and everythin=
g looked great. However his poops seemed to get nasty again so took him in =
on 2/7 where they again found some clostridium in his stool and put him bac=
k on metronidazole. By Wednesday of that week he crashed...limp, wouldn=E2=
=80=99t eat, horrible diarrhea. Took him to the vet again (the vet is 75 mi=
les away) and they hospitalized him. His WBC was 38,000. They X-rayed him a=
nd discovered thickening of the intestines. The X-ray on his side showed ev=
erything looked good but the X-ray on his back revealed a tiny little spot =
on his lung, which the vet wasn=E2=80=99t too concerned about, since it did=
n=E2=80=99t show up on the other view.
The next morning he developed a fever, had even worse diarrhea =E2=80=93 th=
ey asked for permission to do an exploratory and I gave it. Turns out he ha=
d peritonitis due to an intestinal tumor that had perforated the wall of th=
e intestine. Vet took out a section of the intestine and re-sected it, clea=
ned him out with saline and stitched him back up. While he was in there he =
said all other organs looked good (liver, kidneys, even adrenals were fine)=
. Rory made it through the surgery and stayed in the hospital for another f=
ew days. We brought him home that Saturday, just happy to have him alive.
The histopath report was not entirely clear on the type of tumor, but the l=
ab said it was most likely lymphoma. I realize this is not a good prognosis=
.
The vet wants to start him on chemo. My concern is several-fold: 1) Since h=
e had a tumor that was fairly advanced, how successful is chemo likely to b=
e? 2) If the spot on his lung turns out to be a mestasis of the lymphoma, i=
s there any point to chemo? 3) I always thought lymphoma was treated with p=
red; has that protocol changed? (would it make sense to treat him with pred=
if the spot on the lung is a mestasis, knowing he won=E2=80=99t last long =
anyway) 4) How do ferrets react to chemo meds? Like people? Will he be mise=
rable?
I have done some searching through the archives but would like vet/experie=
nced owners input, as we have some serious decisions to make. I have Rory=
=E2=80=99s best interests at heart.
Amy, Dave, Sarah and Paul
And their gaggle of giggling ferrets
RIP Ian, Elektra, Claudia, Sidney, Max, Hannah, Fritz, Fiona and Felix
Missing Tasha
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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