The End For My Carolina Ferrets

It's been a long time since I posted. I lost Zephyr to third degree A/V node heart block last summer. She was nine years old, which is a very good age for a ferret. She lived with the heart condition for just about eight months thanks to the fantastic work of Dr. Lauren Powers at Carolina Veterinary Specialists. She came up with an experimental medication regimen that kept Zephyr going, albeit slowly. According to everything I've read that is a very good result for a ferret with that condition.

As Zephyr slowed down so did Chin Soon. It became apparent by May or June that she wasn't well either. It turned out she had lymphoma, the number one killer of my ferrets over the years. Once Zephyr passed away the life seemed to go out of Chin Soon, who was suddenly a solo ferret after having companions for the previous eight years. I tried giving her all the attention I could and she was still affectionate but never was energetic again. The change in her was just heartbreaking. Sadly, with her illness I knew it was the wrong time to introduce a younger ferret. Also, by that time it was clear I'd be moving. I already had a job offer for my present position pending a series of background checks and I was expecting two other offers. Adding ferrets at that point made no sense.

Chin Soon lasted just a few weeks after Zephyr passed away. Fluid began to build up in her abdomen, just as it had in Kodo's during the last days of his life. I ended up taking her to the emergency vet in Raleigh who told me what I pretty much already knew: her time had come. Chin Soon was nine years old when I let her go.

Both Zephyr and Chin Soon are now buried next to Ella and their other companions over their years with me. I was fortunate enough to have more than seven years with Zephyr and more than eight years with Chin Soon. I miss them. When I moved to Texas last September I was without ferrets for the first time in 14+ years.

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.

Ella, Zephyr and Chin Soon Vet Visit Update -- Good News and Bad

The ferrets and I made the long trip to Carolina Veterinary Specialists in Huntersville yesterday to see. Dr. Lauren Powers. Ella actually has two distinct medical problems. The right eye has an ulcer which has been causing her considerable pain. She is now on both topical and oral antibiotics: one drop of Ofloxacin 0.3% in the injured eye 3-4 times daily and 0.4 ml enrofloxacin. We also have pain meds for her for the next 3-4 days as needed until the eye heals a bit.

The good news here is that after just one day with medication Ella's eye is already improving. Yesterday morning Ella was holding the eye tightly closed and was in obvious pain. She's not holding it closed tonight and is having a nice, normal active evening despite the pain meds. She actually seems far less uncomfortable tonight and was acting more like her normal self.

The ultrasound showed two nodules on Ella's spleen and what Dr. Powers thinks are enlarged illiac lymph nodes. We decided to put Ella under and do aspirates on all three masses. They were sent off for cytology and we should get results by the end of the week. Dr. Powers is still worried about the possibility of lymphoma. The peripheral lymph nodes are not enlarged and the she did say that other things can cause enlarged illiac lymph nodes including IBD and other chronic GI disease. Once we have Ella's lab results back we'll decide how to proceed.

Dr. Powers did check Ella's blood glucose again (was 77 last time) and it was a nice, normal 98. She does not have insulinoma.

I'll post more when the cytology report comes back. Obviously I'm hoping that the masses are benign and that Ella doesn't have lymphoma. FWIW, Ella did have diarrhea this morning but her output was normal later in the day.

The news for Zephyr was also mixed. The good news is that she hasn't actually lost weight. Zephyr has blown her coat at an odd time. What we are seeing is far less hair, not less ferret. The bad news is that her vulva is a bit swollen and that the hair on her belly is thin. We're going to watch and wait and see how symptoms develop. Right now this is looking an awful lot like adrenal disease which would be bad news. At age seven I don't know if we'd do surgery or not. Seeing how Zephyr responds to Lupron is probably the first option if the symptoms of adrenal disease become clear.

Chin Soon's gums are healing. She still has some root exposure but there is definite improvement. Dr. Powers said we should keep doing what we're doing, meaning brushing her teeth regularly, and we'll see how things go over the next two months. Chin Soon's blood glucose was also rechecked and was a nice, normal 91. For Chin Soon yesterday's recheck was all good news.

The cost of all this was almost $700, and almost all of that cost was Ella's diagnostic work. Whatever Ella's diagnosis ends up being we're not done yet.

Ella May Be In Trouble, Zephyr Losing Weight

Due to the winter storm last week the vet appointment for Ella was put off until tomorrow morning. In the meanwhile, over the last couple of days, Ella has become very obviously ill. She can barely open her right eye at all and both eyes are watery. She's also had two serious bouts of diarrhea over the last five days with normal output in between. Ella has also always really loved rough play. The last two nights she's come to me to play with her as always. When she does, though, if I touch her belly much she vocalizes discomfort and play ends. That, combined with her blood test results from January 18th, especially her elevated globulin, have Dr. Powers thinking that Ella may have intestinal lymphoma. That would be truly horrible news.

Dr. Powers will call me back later today with, in her words, "lots of questions" when she's done with her current patient. She doesn't feel like coming in this evening instead of tomorrow morning will make a difference, so for now the plan is to keep tomorrow's scheduled appointment and do more diagnostic work to determine for certain what is wrong with Ella.

In the meanwhile Ella ran around and explored like always last night, is eating and drinking normally, and has plenty of energy so I am hoping against hope for better news when the tests are done.

I am also very concerned about Zephyr who has lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time and also has had on again, off again diarrhea. Like Ella there has been no drop off in Zephyr's activity level and her appetite is just fine. Like Ella she isn't bouncing as much and is avoiding rough play.

Whenever one of the other ferrets is sick Chin Soon tends to stick to them like glue. I saw this with a then eight year old Nyssa during the final month or two of her life. Chin Soon was Nyssa's constant companion then and would curl up and sleep with her. Chin Soon is doing that with Zephyr now which also worries me.

Ella is just two week short of the seventh anniversary of her rescue so she is right around eight years old. Zephyr is six weeks away from the sixth anniversary of her rescue and is roughly seven. Both are considered old in ferret terms. I'm still not ready to lose either one of them.

I'll post more when I know more.

Ella and Chin Soon's Latest Vet Visit

The ferrets and I took a trip to see Dr. Lauren Powers at Carolina Veterinary Specialists in Huntersville a week ago Monday. No, nothing was wrong with any of the ferrets as far as I could tell. They have all seemed blissfully healthy. At their last visit Dr. Powers commented that Chin Soon really needed her teeth scaled. Ella is also somewhere close to eight years old if she's not there already and it's advisable to have checkups and blood work done twice a year for geriatric ferrets. Zephyr came along for the ride since I thought that would be better for her than staying alone in a cage all day.

The good news for Chin Soon is that her fasting blood glucose was a nice, normal 96. This is great news nine months after insulinoma surgery. She also now has nice, clean teeth. The bad news is that her rear teeth have root exposure and pockets which could become infected. The recommendation is that she have those teeth extracted. For right now we're starting antibiotics. I really, really trust Dr. Powers but I was pretty surprised (OK, shocked) by this recommendation. I need to look into it more before allowing her to do something like this to Chin Soon. I know that for human dental care preserving the teeth and doing everything possible to avoid losing them is paramount.

I discussed my concerns with Dr. Powers and her suggested course of action made sense to me. We'll continue brushing Chin Soon's teeth weekly with her Dora the Explorer toothbrush and see if there is any improvement now that the tartar has been removed from her teeth and with antibiotics. If not we'll have to go ahead with the extraction in the next couple of months. If she improves then we can avoid that.

Ella's weight is down about 100 grams over the past seven months but otherwise Dr. Powers says she's in great physical shape. Pending blood work coming back normal she got a clean bill of health. Based on her initial exam it seemed that Ella is in fantastic shape for an eight year old ferret. It's also been more than five years since Dr. Powers did her adrenal surgery and there is still no sign of recurrence or really any health problems at all. Ella does have some tartar on her teeth so we're going to start brushing hers as well. The plan was to her teeth cleaned when we bring Chin Soon in again but that is now on hold.

Later that evening we got a call with results from Ella's bloodwork. Unfortunately a few values were off, including a blood glucose of 77. Because of the other blood values Dr. Powers and her new intern (who's name escapes me at the moment) are thinking some sort of infection or inflammation. We're taking her back to Huntersville for more diagnostic work next week: abdominal ultrasound and urinalysis. Hopefully that will tell us what's going on.

This was a bit of a surprise because Ella showed no symptoms whatsoever of illness. She plays just like always, has a great appetite and absolutely normal output. I guess I just got a great example of why vets do recommend checkups and bloodwork every six months on the old guys to catch things and treat them before they become serious. Some of the possibilities listed are easily treated with medication while others are more serious. Here's hoping it's one of the easily treatable things.

Chin Soon Surgery Update

Chin Soon had her surgery yesterday afternoon. Dr. Powers found a small growth on her left adrenal gland. She also found an insulinoma tumor which she described as "huge", "evil", and "very aggressive" which was right next to the vena cava. She was able to remove all of it as well as one more small nodule she found on Chin Soon's pancreas.

As of late last night Chin Soon was recovering well. As of early this morning things are still going well for the most part but she is severely diabetic. Her blood glucose has been as high as 400. She is on IV fluids to avoid dehydration. We've seen this before after insulinoma surgery and normally the blood glucose does come down and return to normal. I'll get another update after noon and I still hope to be able to take her home late this afternoon or this evening.

Please continue to keep Chin Soon in your thoughts. I am hoping for a speedy and complete recovery.

Chin Soon Update: Insulinoma and Adrenal Disease

Last Tuesday I made the three hour drive to get Chin Soon to a vet I really trust: Dr. Lauren Powers at Carolina Veterinary Specialists in Huntersville.

During the entire time I've been in North Carolina and have owned ferrets Dr. Powers has always been our backup vet, the one Dr. Hudson would send us to when he wanted a second opinion or the one we went to when there was an emergency and a local vet simply wasn't available. She's an outstanding vet with a fantastic reputation in the ferret community but she is just plain far from home. The net result is that she always sees our ferrets when they are on death's door. OK, Pertwee lived for another four years after his visit with Dr. Powers but he wasn't expected to. It was nice, for once, to have Dr. Powers see a ferret she actually could treat. I guess I should point out that Dr. Powers did Ella's entirely successful adrenal surgery more than four years ago. That was a couple of months before I adopted Ella.

Dr. Powers confirmed what I pretty much knew: in addition to insulinoma Chin Soon has adrenal disease. Her nipples are enlarged and her hair loss is starting to look like a classic adrenal pattern. Dr. Powers also said something that Dr. Hudson said to me whenever I caught adrenal disease early: surgery will have to wait a little to make sure that it's clear which adrenal gland is enlarged. The disease has to progress far enough for the surgeon, in this case Dr. Powers, to actually be able to see that one gland is really bigger than the other. Chin Soon is looking at a combined adrenal and insulinoma surgery, essentially the same surgery Lady Ayeka had back in 2004, at a cost of around $900.

Dr. Powers also rechecked Chin Soon's blood glucose. Despite obvious clinical improvement from the pediapred it was still very low: 44. The pediapred dosage was increased to .18ml (5mg/5ml concentation), still less than a fifth of what the nightmare vet wanted to prescribe. Dr. Powers also started Chin Soon on 100mcg of Lupron (the one month depot) to relieve her adrenal symptoms. Lupron worked very well for Podo when his adrenal disease recurred late in his life.

Chin Soon also gained 110 grams in just a week, a side effect of the pediapred. The fact that she is voraciously eating Bob Church's Chicken Gravy twice a day when she gets her medication is almost certainly also contributing. She had actually lost weight this winter due to her illnesses so this weight gain is a good thing.

While the expense of surgery is going to be difficult to meet in the current economic climate at least I know Chin Soon can be treated and is being cared for by a great vet. As I noted in my last post Chin Soon is definitely feeling much better. The net result is that she's bouncing and war dancing and wrestling more. When she plays more Ella and Zephyr get excited and play with her. Things are better all around.