Zephyr: Insulinoma Surgery

Zephyr is now approximately 7½ years old. She was diagnosed with insulinoma before the holidays and has been on prednisolone which did absolutely nothing for her. She had a seizure last week and continued to have severe symptoms. Her blood glucose as of this morning was 36.

Dr. Lauren Powers at Carolina Veterinary Specialists performed insulinoma surgery on Zephyr this morning. This is the third time I've had insulinoma surgery on a ferret Zephyr's age or older and, in all three cases, either Dr. Dan Hudson, Dr. Holly Weston and now Dr. Powers believed it was the only treatment option left.

The good news is that Zephyr came through surgery just fine and is awake. Two very large nodules were removed from Zephyr's pancreas. While nothing was sent off for pathology yet Dr. Powers believes the really huge one is a carcinoma. Dr. Powers also found a small, smooth, round nodule on Zephyr's spleen which she aspirated. She believes it will prove to be benign and did not want to remove the spleen unless it was absolutely necessary so it stayed in. Everything else looked normal, including both adrenal glands and Zephyr's lymph nodes.

I'm never comfortable with surgery on a ferret Zephyr's age but sometimes it is the only good option. When Kodo and Podo had their insulinoma surgeries their quality of life improved dramatically and they lived for roughly two more years. I'm hoping we've bought that much time for Zephyr too.