An Anniversary on the 4th of July

17 years ago, on 4th of July weekend, I brought home the toughest ferret I have ever known. Nyssa was a panda kit that was in the only pet store in North Carolina that I know of to have been shut down by the responsible authorities. Yes, it was that bad. That's where Nyssa started her journey, in a very small cage filled with 20 kits, no food, mountains of poop. The owners and their friends were smoking in the store. From what I later read I didn't see the half of how awful that place was.

Anyway, I went to a company picnic held on the grounds of the local nuclear plant. Don't even get me started on that. Doesn't everyone picnic at a nuclear plant? Anyway... One of my coworkers had a German shepherd on a leash. Nyssa wasn't impressed. She wasn't curious; she wanted the dog gone and was aggressive about it. The shepherd was absolutely terrified of her, growled and backed away as Nyssa, on her leash and harness, continued to challenge the dog and advance. Yeah, I picked her up because that could have gotten ugly, though I'm not sure for who.

When a ferret is diagnosed with lymphosarcoma the average life expectancy is 90 days according to the Dr. Dan Hudson, who was treating Nyssa at the time. Sadly I had way too much experience with that. Nearly a year and a half later I was writing about Nyssa's eighth birthday. She was just too stubborn to die despite having added adrenal disease to her list of problems. I finally had to let her go the following month.

Anyway, on this 4th of July I am remembering Nyssa. Happy Fourth to everyone out there. I hope you and yours, both two and four legged, are having a great day.

Goodbye Ella, 2002-2010

Back in February my oldest ferret, Ella, went to the vet for a couple of issues which I wrote about back then. She also had an enlarged spleen for roughly three years up until then. On that
examination found that her spleen was normal size but showed some irregular edges on the ultrasound. Dr. Powers didn't seem overly concerned at the time and we didn't worry about it.

For nearly eight months since then Ella acted like a happy, healthy, affectionate and playful ferret. All seemed right with the world.

Last Saturday night Ella had a little bit of an upset tummy, was moving a bit slowly, and seemed to have some hind end weakness. My first thought was insulinoma since that was what it looked like.

By Sunday evening the diarrhea was much worse, as in almost liquid and Ella had pronounced hind end weakness. She still ate her chicken gravy greedily but had little energy after that. I debated an emergency vet visit but decided she'd probably be OK if I called her regular vet in the morning.

By Monday morning it was obvious something was terribly wrong. Ella could barely move and was incontinent. She couldn't even move from her own waste. She was shivering and cool to the touch. I decided she couldn't take the three hour drive to Huntersville to see Dr. Powers and I called a local vet and got her in there. I kept her warm as best I could and gave her some warm gravy which she ate during the first part of the 45 minute drive.

By the time we arrived at the vet Ella's breathing was labored and she barely responded at all. The vet examined her and the news was terrible: Ella had a very large tumor on her spleen which had ruptured. She was bleeding into her abdomen. We were advised us that the kindest thing we could do was to say goodbye.

Ella was originally rescued in early 2003. She was found as a stray wandering in Chapel Hill in miserable shape. Her first vet appointment was on March 19, 2003 and we always treated that as if it was her birthday. That vet (Dr. Dan Hudson, who has since retired) estimated her age at 1 year old at that time. Dr. Powers saw her later and estimated that she was half a year older than that. Her original owner passed away rather suddenly in late 2004 and we adopted her ferrets, Ella and Zephyr. Ella was somewhere around eight and a half or perhaps nine years old when she died.


This is essentially the same way we lost Romana five years ago. At the time I was away on a business trip and my housemate has long beat herself up for not getting Romana to the vet the second she saw something wrong. I've always told her it wouldn't have made a difference. Suddenly I find myself asking the same question. I raised the issue on the Ferret Health List and the consensus was that it probably wouldn't have mattered. It was Ella's time.

Goodbye, Ella Bear. You will be missed.

A Good Day For Ella, A Great Day For Team USA

Yesterday I was a bit under the weather. Ella, on the other hand, was having a good day. Her eye is almost completely back to normal. I also got her cytology report back from Dr. Powers.

The good news is that the masses on her spleen are benign. Quoting:

"Extramedullary hematopoiesis is a common cause for splenic enlargement in ferrets, especially older ferrets. The cause for this process has not been determined, but it may be associated with antigenic stimulation from the gut, endocrine or metabolic derangements, aging, or combinations thereof."

Dr. Powers' translation is that these are two spots where the spleen is producing extra red blood cells. Aging as a cause? Older ferrets? That sounds like Ella. We've known she's had an enlarged spleen for a few years.

The results on the enlarged subiliac lymph nodes were inconclusive. As Dr. Powers explained previously this could be caused by a chronic GI disease. It also...

"could possibly represent early stages of small cell lymphoma, the most common variant of lymphoma in old ferrets."

In other words we still don't know the cause. I still need to talk to Dr. Powers to decide how to proceed from here. In the meanwhile Ella hasn't had diarrhea in a week and is putting on weight. She hasn't been quite as active as she normally is but all in all she seems to be doing OK.

Tonight was better. In the race to the chicken gravy Ella took the gold, edging out Chin Soon in the run from the cage door to her favorite treat at the entrance to the kitchen. Not too bad for an old, blind ferret who is supposed to be past her prime.

So... last night we watched skiing and speed skating on a day when Americans won six medals. The women's downhill included some horrendous crashes. It also saw Lindsey Vonn take the gold medal and Julia Mancuso win the silver, the first time U.S. women finished 1-2 since 1984. I also saw Shani Davis take the gold medal in men's 1,000 meter speed skating while Chad Hedrick took the bronze. It was the best day ever for Team USA in the Winter Olympics.

Tonight it's skiing again, and lots of playing with some bouncy little weasels. Add a little figure skating and it sounds like fun to me. I just wish I could be in Vancouver seeing it live.

Four Years Later It's Ferrets and Figure Skating Again

Four years ago I wrote about watching the Winter Olympics and playing with my ferrets. This year I actually received an e-mail from the U.S. Olympic Committee which asked me if I'd be willing to blog about Team USA here on the ferrets' blog again this year. They actually noticed my three posts four years ago. Amazing! Anyway, I won't disappoint them.

Three of the four ferrets who were there for the Olympics in 2006 are back. Nyssa, of course, lost her battle with lymphoma at the ripe old age of eight in July, 2006. Ella, Zephyr and Chin Soon are now all older ferrets but don't tell them that when they are in high energy play mode.

So, will Chin Soon take the gold again as my non-stop weasel? So far, no, that honor goes to the always playful Zephyr. As I wrote four years ago Zephyr and all the ferrets love the Olympics because while I watch they are free to run around and during long commercial breaks they get lots of attention. Oh, and yeah, I love the Winter Olympics too. I went to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid and I've been addicted to the quadrennial games ever since.

What about Team USA? Skaters Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig turned in a beautiful performance this evening in the pairs short program. They aren't expected to contend for a medal but their skating was still fantastic to watch.

Ella's eye seems to be improving slowly. Earlier it was fully open but at medication time this evening it didn't look too good. I hope to have results from her lab work in the next day or two. Zephyr seems fine. She's growing a summer coat in midwinter. Her seasons have always been way off and she's been healthy all her life. Anything resembling adrenal symptoms have disappeared, at least for now.

Anyway, I'll be blogging about Olympic ferret playtime again over the next two weeks. I can't disappoint the USOC, can I?