More Vaccinations, No Reactions, and Traveling Weasels

Zephyr and Ella had their distemper vaccinations yesterday, thankfully with no reactions this time. Both Ella and Zephyr were pretreated with Benadryl and they were just fine. I waited an hour and a quarter at Dr. Wolfe's office. I probably would have waited just a bit longer still to be absolutely sure with Zephyr but it was closing time by then.

Poor Zephyr hates being in the little travel cage. Ella and Chin Soon are great travelers but Zephy gets really unhappy when she's cooped up.

The good news is that I've pretty much learned what it takes to make a Zephyr-proof barrier just about anywhere. This means that the ferrets can pretty much always get a safe play time wherever we are. The bad news is Zephyr proof also means a barrier I can't get past. Oh well... it's worth it to keep the little weasels safe.

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A Very Delayed Vaccination Reaction

On Wednesday my three little weasels went to the vet for their rabies vaccinations. All three have a history of reactions, albeit mild ones, so all three were pretreated with Benadryl. I talked about waiting a full hour after vaccination to make sure there was no reaction. Dr. Wolfe, who is certainly an outstanding and very experienced ferret vet, thought that half an hour is enough. I still remember making a wild U-turn on Chapel Hill Road (NC 54) to get Adric back to Dr. Hudson when he reacted to his rabies shot nearly an hour after it was given. I waited the hour.

Well... after an hour Chin Soon, Ella, and Zephyr all seemed find. I took them home. Just as I was arriving, nearly an hour and a half after being vaccinated, Zephyr started vomiting. She ended up with diarrhea and projectile vomit. I called Dr. Wolfe, gave Zephyr some more Benadryl orally at her direction, and Zephyr and I headed back to see her again. Thankfully Zephy was fine after that and was quite bright and looked really good when Dr. Wolfe saw her again. We got home sometime around 7:30 that evening.

Zephyr has been fine ever since and was very much her bratty, playful, rambunctious self on Thursday evening.

Dr. Wolfe never heard of a reaction that long after vaccination. Neither had I. Next time we pretreat Zephyr with dexamethasone and I bring plenty of reading material to wait the full 90 minutes to make sure she's OK.

Why do I always have the ferrets with weird medical issues?

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