Tata's Surgery

Dr. Dan Johnson at Avian and Exotic Animal Care in Raleigh performed Tata's surgery today. He removed a very large right adrenal tumor, a fair amount of his pancreas including some large nodules, and a lump from his spleen. All are being sent off for pathology. The good news is Tata came through surgery well, he's awake and his vital signs are strong. For those of you not familiar with ferret medicine, right adrenal surgery is far less common than left and more difficult. Despite all he went through Dr. Johnson said Tata "looks good" and was very upbeat about the result. I'll know tomorrow morning if he gets to come home or spend the weekend in the hospital.

Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes, thoughts and prayers for Tata. A huge thank you to everyone who bought CDs and minidiscs from me on Discogs to offset some of the cost. I'm still in a difficult place financially with this and total costs will likely exceed $2000. I'll be listing more on Discogs shortly and any additional music purchases will still help. I can live with a smaller music collection. I couldn't live with Tata not getting the medical care he so clearly needed.

I'll be posting an update when I know more.

Buy Some Great Music and Help Tata Get Surgery Sooner

Tata, my oldest ferret, has adrenal disease which has been under control thanks to a deslorelin implant. He also now has insulinoma, and attempts to control that medically haven't worked very well. His last blood glucose was only 52. He's scheduled to see the vet again on Friday.

The recommendation as of his last visit by two vets in the practice is to have surgery, preferably sooner rather than later. Unfortunately my business has been incredibly slow lately and I can't afford it just yet. Over the past 31 years I've gradually built a very large music collection on CD. I've decided to sell off as much as I can to fund his surgery, both on Discogs and on eBay. I'm not asking for charity. I am asking that if you're one of those people who still like a physical copy of albums you like that you take a look to see if there is anything you want. I also have items listed where the CD would be cheaper than a legal download from iTunes, Amazon, etc... If you get a CD you can rip the music to mp3 yourself and have the original copy as a backup.

I have over 300 items listed on Discogs and that number will be increasing in the coming days. You can sort by clicking on Artist, Title, Price, etc... Prices range from a couple of dollars to some rather expensive, collectible items. I try to be very competitive in all my pricing. Discogs is better for me than eBay because commissions are lower so more money ends up in my pocket. If you don't have a Discogs account you can sign in with a Facebook account instead. If you don't have a PayPal account I don't believe you need one -- they'll take a credit card.

So.. please, take a look, and if you don't find something you like now check back in few days. I offer free shipping on multi-CD orders of a certain value depending on which country you're in, so please check my terms as well.

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me help Tata this way.

Zephyr: First Playtime, Worries About Post-Surgical Diabetes

Zephyr's blood glucose was 287 last night.  If Dr. Powers was in town she would have gone back to Huntersville and probably would have started on insulin.  Since Dr. Powers is out of town I decided to wait and see what her blood glucose was today. Thankfully it was down to 213.  If it stays below 250 I'll remember that the glucometer we have isn't the most accurate in the world and not overreact to one high number.  If it goes up into the danger zone again I'll have no choice.

We have experienced surgically induced diabetes with pretty much all our ferrets who have had insulinoma surgery over the years. The worst was Chin Soon, who actually had to have insulin injections for about a week. Her pancreas began working normally after that and she made a full recovery.

I did give Zephyr her first playtime last night and she mainly explored for almost half an hour.  She still has some hind end weakness but she didn't fall.  Chin Soon got excited and sniffed and followed and chatted up a storm.  She didn't try to wrestle.  She seems to understand that Zephyr isn't healthy right now, which is good.  Zephyr, for her part, did the litter pan shuffle and begged for treats :) I'll take that as a good sign.

Once Zephyr went into the fleecy blanket Chin Soon wanted lots of attention from me. She's still clearly concerned about her adopted sister. So am I.

Zephyr is Recovering Beautifully

Zephyr, my ferret who had insulinoma surgery yesterday, is making a beautiful recovery so far.  She began eating kibble on her own last night in addition to her gravy and did a very professional job of emptying the food bowl and water bottle.  She has diarrhea but otherwise is eliminating normally.

Zephyr's blood glucose was 269 last night.   Post-surgical diabetes was expected and Dr. Powers called that number borderline but not of enough concern to have to bring her back just yet. This morning my glucometer gave an error and by the time I was ready to try again with another strip I had to prick her tail again.  The problem was she had already just about finished her chicken gravy.  We scruffed her to try that way and the little monster repeatedly broke the scruff.  That's how strong and feisty she is this morning.  I'll give her more gravy in a couple of hours and that should let me try again.

Right now we are weening her from prednisolone, giving her tramadol every 12 hours for pain, and a sliver of Pepcid AC in her gravy to avoid ulcers.

I was told that Chin Soon was really agitated when Zephyr wasn't around last night.  We let them briefly sniff each other through cage bars last night and put the recovery cage next to the main cage so that the two would know the other is there and is OK. That isn't good enough for Chin Soon, who frantically circled the recovery cage this morning looking for a way in and then repeatedly dumped her food bowl and deliberately missed the litter pan in protest.  The next week, while the two have to be separated, is going to be challenging.

All in all, I'm thrilled with how well Zephyr is recovering.

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.

Chin Soon Comes Home

After four days in the hospital Chin Soon is finally stable. I brought her home Friday night. She is still on insulin. With a daily insulin injection her blood glucose does still bounce around but does come back into the normal range. What we are hoping is that her blood glucose stops spiking up because her pancreas is producing insulin again. I obviously don't want her to remain diabetic and to need insulin daily and regular blood glucose checks.

Zephyr has been a little out of sorts the last few days. She hasn't been playing or wrestling much and has been clinging to me. I think she missed Chin Soon. Now that she knows Chin Soon is OK things should get better.

I am checking Chin Soon's blood glucose every four hours (yes, including in the middle of the night), giving her frequent feedings of Bob Church's Chicken Gravy, and giving her the insulin injection. These are things I've never had to do before with any of my ferrets and are definitely things I am squeamish about and uncomfortable with. Unfortunately I don't see any other choice.

The good news is that Chin Soon is alert and is acting pretty much like her normal self. When I put her into a Midwest cage (without levels or hammocks) she immediately tried to climb out. After gravy it's supposed to be playtime, right? She still thinks so. Her incision is healing nicely. I'd just like to get her back to a nice, normal life. That's when I get back to a nice, normal life.

Between the surgery and complications, four days of hospitalization, the diabetes supplies, and her prescriptions the total cost is in excess of $1,400. It will get close to $1,500 with at least one follow-up visit to Dr. Powers I'm sure some people would read this and think that I am absolutely crazy to spend this kind of money on a ferret's medical care and to go through all this aftercare as well. Most pet owners will understand perfectly. Chin Soon is part of the family. She gets what she needs. Hopefully she'll end up healthy and happy again and will be around for a few more good years.

Chin Soon Not Doing Well (Post-Surgery Diabetes)

If you've been reading this blog you know that Chin Soon is a 5½ year old spayed female ferret who had insulinoma and adrenal surgery on Tuesday. Her vet, Dr. Powers, found a small left adrenal tumor and an insulinoma tumor she described as "huge", "evil", and "very aggressive". It had grown up against the vena cava. There was also one smaller nodule on Chin Soon's pancreas. Dr. Powers feels she successfully removed all of the tumor and the nodule.

Chin Soon was recovering well yesterday. She had post-surgery diabetes which is something we've seen before. Her blood glucose night before last was 400. It dropped to 280 by yesterday morning and 232 by yesterday evening. Then things started going backwards. She was up to 320 by yesterday evening and the levels have kept going up. Her blood glucose this morning was 432.

Dr. Powers tells us that in cases like this, after a very large and aggressive insulinoma tumor is removed, sometimes diabetes is a permanent but manageable consequence. She is starting Chin Soon on insulin today and holding her over one more night to see how she responds. Then Chin Soon will come home but we will have to monitor her blood glucose regularly and give her a small quantity of insulin daily. She'll have to go back to Dr. Powers for a recheck her next week.

This is a setback we really did not expect or plan for. I'll post more when I know more.

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: Surgery Next Tuesday

Chin Soon is going back to see Dr. Lauren Powers at Carolina Veterinary Specialists in Huntersville again next Tuesday. She will have surgery for both insulinoma and adrenal disease.

At her last recheck her blood glucose was still only 57. She's gained a fair amount of weight, a side effect of the pediapred (prednisolone) as well as a consequence of eating lots of high calorie chicken gravy. As a result we could increase her pediapred dosage again a little. It's still not enough. Yes, Chin Soon is bouncy and playful but her stamina still isn't what it used to be and she still slips and has hind-end weakness. Her insulinoma can't be controlled with a moderate dose of pediapred and that means it's time for surgery. We no longer have any other good options.

Her adrenal disease is progressing as well despite increasing her lupron dosage to 200mcg. She's still losing hair all over the place. The only cure for adrenal disease is surgery. The only good thing about having both diseases at once is that she will only have to go through one surgery instead of two.

I'm worried, of course. This is major surgery and there is always a risk that something can go wrong. At least I have complete confidence in Dr. Powers. She did Ella's adrenal surgery more than four years ago and Ella has been fine ever since. I'm hoping the surgery will give us several more good years with Chin Soon.

The cost? Depending on what Dr. Powers finds and how well things go it will be anywhere from $850 to $1175. There is no getting around the fact that ferrets are expensive pets and that the average ferret will have at least once health crisis requiring surgery and costing $1000 or more during their lifetime.

Anyone who is a pet owner knows that pets become family members. Medical care like this is, unfortunately, a mandatory part of being a responsible pet owner.

Please keep Chin Soon in your thoughts over the next week.

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.

Chin Soon Is Feeling Much Better

Chin Soon is feeling much better since starting on pediapred. I used what our original vet always used as a starting dosage: .01ml twice a day (5mg/5ml concentration) and it's pretty obvious she didn't need 10 times that much. She is very much her old self, ferreting away her favorite toys and running down the hall with abandon and, best of all, no more signs of hind end weakness.

Of course I have no idea what Chin Soon's actualy blood glucose level is at the moment. We'll know on Tuesday when she goes to see Dr. Lauren Powers, the outstanding ferret vet I've mentioned before. Then we'll know whether the pediapred dosage needs to be increased, decreased, or left alone.

Chin Soon Has Insulinoma & A Nightmare Vet Visit

I'm back after a long absence... This post is long but I want to get all the facts out so please bear with me.

Chin Soon is 5½ now and until recently she has had no health problems at all other than minor vaccination reactions. Lately she's had two symptoms: hind end weakness and hair loss, almost entirely on her tail. Chin Soon has rat tail at every coat change and she always grows the hair back quickly. This winter she didn't. My fears were insulinoma and adrenal disease. I've had a couple of ferrets in the past have both at once. I also thought of lymphoma. Anyway, off to the vet...

I've been back in North Carolina for a while now but I was in a quandry about what vet to take Chin Soon too. Our original vet here, Dr. Dan Hudson, retired a few years ago. The vet we used after that rarely sees ferrets now. The other vet I really trust moved all the way across the state a few years back. There are two ferret vets left in my local area. One has a fantastic reputation in terms of care but also has a reputation for being outrageously expensive and for doing everything and anything extra to increase the bill. Another who shall remain nameless was recommended by one of the active members of the local ferret club for both quality care and reasonable prices. In the current economy I decided I really had to go to the second vet.

The new vet checked Chin Soon's fasting blood glucose which was 41 so that confirmed insulinoma. She wants to do an ultrasound to see if an adrenal tumor shows up. All well and good so far. She said some other things vis a vis adrenal treatment that made no sense to me but I filed them for later research. She called in a perscription for Pediapred which I picked up yesterday afternoon. This is where things started to go seriously wrong.

The dosage with the perscription was 1.0ml twice daily, 5mg/ml solution. Yes, 1.0 not 0.1. Every other vet I've dealt with started my ferrets at 0.1ml, rechecked the glucose, and adjusted the dosage. A dosage 10 times higher worried me greatly. I called the vet's office to confirm that this was an error and that someone slipped a digit. No, it turns out that because Chin Soon's blood glucose level was "so low" she really wanted to give her 2mg per day. I wasn't going to give that much without a second opinion
.
This morning I called that vet that had moved across the state who I really do trust. She told me that the dosage prescribed was higher than what they give with chemotherapy to destroy a ferret's immune system! While she wouldn't prescribe a dosage without a visit (and I don't blame her for
that) she read me the textbook maximum dosage and it is less than a third of what the new vet prescribed for Chin Soon.

My decision, of course, is to drive three and a half hours and to take Chin Soon to the vet I spoke to today. The new vet's dosage would actually have been dangerous if not eventually life threatening for poor little Chin Soon. Thankfully I knew enough about ferrets after 11 years of having them and going through all their medical issues with them to question that dosage. Imagine if I didn't. Imagine if I just did what the new vet said. Most people would have done just that. I would have 10 years ago.

This incident, this nightmare vet, reinforced my belief that ferret medicine is a specialty and that ferrets have to go to vets who have both experience and a high success rate with ferrets. Thankfully there is an active ferret community online and in most major cities which allows ferret owners to network and get the information I need.

I also realize just how spoiled the ferrets and I were when we were in Green Bay and had a great ferret vet 20 minutes away.