Thankful for small miracles
Nov. 28th, 2005 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherSpent most of Friday and a good part of Sunday down in the Exotic's wing of Tufts Animal Hospital. Tira has Something Wrong and we're still not sure what. Thursday, she was fine. Friday morning, she was huddled in the back of the cage with her fur plastered down like she'd wet herself and drug herself through the litter box. Even after a bath, she could barely pull hold herself on her feet or walk. By 10 am, she could barely pick up her head. I thought we were going to loose her on the drive down to Tufts but she made it through. They got her back on her feet, took blood, gave me something to settle her stomach so she could eat and sent us home. We went back on Sunday to talk over the results and get more medication.
After blood work and a look at her insides, the vet says A)adrenal disease and B) Something Else. The adrenal disease obvious ... the right adrenal gland is swollen and has a dark knot on it. That wouldn't cause her to suddenly fall over sick, though. Adrenal disease is a wasting disease, not something that knocks them on their ass in <24 hours. The current guesses for the Something Else include Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Lymphoma or a relatively new disease that I can't remember the name for, just that the first word was latin for Unknown. Symptoms for all of them include weakness, loss of coordination in the back legs, fever and swollen internal organs. Yesterday her poor belly was so bloated that she couldn't even fit under the closet doors any more.
So now she's on four medications, one of which she likes, two that she tolerates and one that makes her hiss, spit and gag. Between the four of them, she's more or less back on her feet. She wanders around fairly well for maybe 10, 15 minutes and then goes to sleep for a few hours. I've been feeding her lots of wet kibble mash to keep up her strength. I don't know why but almost all ferrets love to be hand fed and will eat from your hands even if they are on deaths door. She's also living in the downstairs bathroom since Midori won't leave her alone.
Tomorrow she goes in for a lymph node biopsy to rule out lymphoma. If it is lymphoma, well, that's bad. The only half-way successful treatment is chemo and that's not all that successful. One of those four medications is for IBD, so if the biopsy comes back negative, we're already started on treatment for the next most likely problem.
We haven't even started talking about the adrenal problem. Normal solution, remove the infected gland since they have two of them. Unfortunatly, the right adrenal gland is very hard to remove. It runs right beside a major artery. Most ferrets get adrenal disease in the left gland. Not mine, though, no, she has to be difficult. First a broken tail, then a broken toe, then getting a kidney removed ... always my problem child, this one.
I knew something like this was coming soon. My ferrets are old. Very few make it past 8 years and mine are well on their way to 7. Something was going to go sooner or later. I didn't think it'd happen so quickly but I knew something was going to happen relatively soon. Knowing its coming isn't the same as being ready for it, I'm afraid.
After blood work and a look at her insides, the vet says A)adrenal disease and B) Something Else. The adrenal disease obvious ... the right adrenal gland is swollen and has a dark knot on it. That wouldn't cause her to suddenly fall over sick, though. Adrenal disease is a wasting disease, not something that knocks them on their ass in <24 hours. The current guesses for the Something Else include Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Lymphoma or a relatively new disease that I can't remember the name for, just that the first word was latin for Unknown. Symptoms for all of them include weakness, loss of coordination in the back legs, fever and swollen internal organs. Yesterday her poor belly was so bloated that she couldn't even fit under the closet doors any more.
So now she's on four medications, one of which she likes, two that she tolerates and one that makes her hiss, spit and gag. Between the four of them, she's more or less back on her feet. She wanders around fairly well for maybe 10, 15 minutes and then goes to sleep for a few hours. I've been feeding her lots of wet kibble mash to keep up her strength. I don't know why but almost all ferrets love to be hand fed and will eat from your hands even if they are on deaths door. She's also living in the downstairs bathroom since Midori won't leave her alone.
Tomorrow she goes in for a lymph node biopsy to rule out lymphoma. If it is lymphoma, well, that's bad. The only half-way successful treatment is chemo and that's not all that successful. One of those four medications is for IBD, so if the biopsy comes back negative, we're already started on treatment for the next most likely problem.
We haven't even started talking about the adrenal problem. Normal solution, remove the infected gland since they have two of them. Unfortunatly, the right adrenal gland is very hard to remove. It runs right beside a major artery. Most ferrets get adrenal disease in the left gland. Not mine, though, no, she has to be difficult. First a broken tail, then a broken toe, then getting a kidney removed ... always my problem child, this one.
I knew something like this was coming soon. My ferrets are old. Very few make it past 8 years and mine are well on their way to 7. Something was going to go sooner or later. I didn't think it'd happen so quickly but I knew something was going to happen relatively soon. Knowing its coming isn't the same as being ready for it, I'm afraid.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 05:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 05:59 pm (UTC)Since chemo doesn't cure, is expensive, and has cranky side-effects, it's a viable alternative. I'd think that it might be a choice in ferrets, too.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 06:08 pm (UTC)That's part of the problem. At best, Chemo might give her 6 months to a year BUT, like I said, she's old. She may very well have in-operatable adrenal disease. I'm not sure I want to give her 6 months of vets and needles and chemo side effects when I could give her 2 months of bouncy, healthy feeling ferretiness. We're hitting a quality/quantity issue here.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-28 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 01:31 am (UTC)Re: your comment to Red_haired_girl:
...It might sound a bit harsh, but... I'm a strong believer in
quality over quantity. Particularly in critters who won't understand
*why* they're being given misery. :-P