Forever moments....

The House is still as I lay asleep on the futon. Below my conciousness, I feel a little brush against my face. Thinking that I am dreaming, I sigh and fall back into sleep. But there it is again, like little butterfly wings, gently kissing my cheeks.

I lie there, floating in that state between sleep and wakefulness I feel it again--along my chin-my nose, my lips, my eyes. As it continues, I finally surface and slowly open my eyes. It is Loki.

Having awakened from her perch in her split hammack--she comes over to the futon to rub her whiskers and nose all along my face. As I lay their unmoving, she continues to give my face her little whiskery kisses until she is done.

She pats my cheek with her nose one last time as if to say "I love you mama, now I'm going back to bed" and toddles back to her hammie to fall back to sleep.

I am blessed, because I will have that moment forever... even after the lymphoma has finally won the battle she continues to wage--I will have that moment. I will be able to pluck it from my heart-where all such memories are safely tucked away.

My first little sable baby, blessing her mama's face with her sweet little whiskery kisses.

One more reason weasle's amuse me....

Let me start this by saying that Ferret's are odd little critters--and that is part of the reason that I love them so much--because I also am a little odd. For some reason, ferrets love feet--and some of them absolutely go insane for white socks. Some take them out of the laundry, some bite your toes while you walk across the room--and some, like my little Latte, try to take them off your feet so she can carry them off.

Because I know this about her, I very rarely hang out in the ferret room without slippers on-but there have been times when I've fallen asleep on the futon, my slippers have fallen off and (after she carries off my slippers) I've woken up to little sharp teethies nibbling on my toes, trying to take my socks off. At that point, I usually take them off, give them to her and she carries them off (after all, it's not like I don't know where her hidey hole is and I can always retrieve them)

Well, last night Rich was hanging out on the futon (with his shoes off and no slippers) and Latte decided that she just HAD to have daddy's socks. I told him he should just take them off and give them to her (it makes your life alot easier, as she is VERY persistant--Yeah, I know--I give into the ferrets like I would NEVER give in to Sandy) but for some reason he had to be stubborn (to which I say--pick your battles--the ferrets are always gonna win, they are just "that kind of critter" so. why waste your energy?) so, he took them off and tried to put them in a place where she couldn't get them (without getting off the futon) HAHAHA--did I mention that she's persistant???

So, she got a hold of one of his socks and tried to carry it off--he grabbed it in an attempt to save it--and my little beastie started to hiss at him (mind you, she had a face full of sock--and did I mention that in the 3 months I've had her, I've NEVER heard her hiss--even when playing with her Woosligan brothers...) Well, since she is only 2 lbs, and he is signifigantly more than that--he was able to retrieve the sock. But she was MMAAAAADDDD!!! LOLOLOL

Weasles make me laugh--and God knows, I needed it yesterday!!

Oh yeah--an update on Oreo: we took him back to the Dr and she retested his blood glucose--it was low still, so he's now on Prednisone and Diazoxide. She also did a fecal and apparently, he had a cootie so was put on Flagyl--everyone hates flagyl, but it seems to be helping as he is eating much better-and we actually saw him eat kibble--YAY! So, what probably happened last week, was his tummy was bothering him, he didn't eat--which caused him BG to go down--and subsegquently led to hypoglycemia and siezures...

Tribute to Missy Moo Moo

Miss Moo Moo (Missy) came to the shelter with two other ferrets about 3 or so years ago as a result of a criminal case. She (along with her two brothers) stayed at the shelter as they had various health issues. At that time, she was adrenal--later on she developed insulinoma along with a massive growth in her abdomen.

When I met her a few years ago, she was a little bald fiesty scrawny girl. She had a tuft of fur on her head and all four ankles and that was about it. She was one of the first ferrets to whom we gave Meletonin implant. After the implant, she gained weight and grew her luxurious fur back--although she was still feisty (not a mean fiesty, she just didn't take crap from anyone....LOL) She loved her babies (little stuffed animals) and would carry them around the room with her (even if they were bigger than her) and WOE to the ferret that tried to mess with her babies--they soon learnedwhy Miss Moo was the boss of the room!!

For the past couple months, she hadn't been doing so hot and we nursed her along as best we could. It seemed her insulinoma was getting worse and the abdomenal growth was getting pretty significant--We just nursed her and kept an eye on her--she'd bounced back before.

For the past week, she's been fighting her medicine and yesterday, her back end stopped working. She wasn't in pain, she was dragging herself around the room, but it was obvious that it was neurological and the growth had pressed something in her spine. Through yesterday and today, she started to develop sores (because she was having problems eliminating)

We brought her to the dr a short time ago and the three of us made the decision to help her over the bridge. Almost to the moment she passed, she was still our fiesty little missy moo--who seemed to have the will, but her little body was just giving out on her.

I think that this is when it's the hardest for me--not when they seem to have given up and you can tell they are done--but when their little bodies are totally breaking down...but that spark still seems to be flickering.

They are all special--but there was something extraordinary about Miss Moo. She almost made it to her tenth birthday--but now she is at the bridge and is running around with her brothers and other friends from the shelter.

Good bye Miss Moo--it won't be the same without you. Mama and Aunty love you more than we can express. Rest well, until we meet again.

Loki and Kawzi go to the vet....

Loki and Kawzi had a vet appt yesterday....Loki her monthly check up and Kawzi because I had some suspicions that were unfortunatley prooved correct.

Loki is doing well... considering. She now looks like a blowfish and has bloomed to a voluptous 2 + bls (she was originally 1 1/4 and most of the weight gain is edema) but she is trucking along--she was fiesty enouph at the Dr's to growl at them when they took her temp--and then tried to climb up the vets pant leg to explore. We are paying attention to her quality of life and not her clinical symptoms--I can only Thank God that she still seems comfortable and is doing her thing.

Kawzi has lymphoma. His abdomen had enlarged within the past week and the lymph nodes at the back of his neck and legs popped up. There is nothing additionally that we can do for him, as he is already on a substantial dose of Pred (for his insulinoma) The vet noticed a little bit of wheezing (through the stethescope) so we believe that the lymph nodes might be starting to occlude his breathing. As of now (other than him lying on his back) there have been no signifigant breathing changes, but that is what I have to watch out for. Zu Zu knows he is sick--when they are out in the room, he walks around sticking his head into beds until he finds Kawzi and then climbs in on top of him (which Kawzi does not always appreciate...lol)

I will just have to continue on with what I've been doing--getting as many Kawzi doggy kissies as I can--and keeping him as comfortable as possible.

Sometimes I hate being right. :-(

The story of Oreo....

Oreo came into the shelter about a month ago. He was brought to us from a man in CT who claimed the four ferrets in his possession had been abandoned to him 2 months before. He sounded desperate --so we made an appt for him to surrender the four of them to us. He was coming on a Saturday and the shelter director repeatedly asked him if they had any health problems and if it was possible, to come as early as possible on Saturday so we could get them to the vet if need be (mind you, she typically does not respond this way--so, her gut feeling should have clued us in) He claimed that 2 were in very good good health, one was naked (which we knew to be adrenal) and the fourth had a pea sized growth on his back leg.

When the man arrived at 1:45. we took the weasles out of the carrier to take a look at them...2 energetic ferrets bounded out, with a little naked girl toddling out shortly behind them. When the director reached her hand in to pull the last ferret out--we both looked at him in stunned horror--this "pea sized growth" was in actuality a wound that the vet later described as "if he was a larger animal, I would say this came from getting stuck in a bear trap" other than that, it defies description. The edges were already necrotic--and how he wasn't septic, I will NEVER know.

I grabbed him and the carrier--and the director grabbed the phone to find someone we could bring him to. By the grace of God--one of our ferret savy vets answered the phone (even though they were closed ) and told us to bring him in.

On my way out to the car, the "gentleman" stopped me to ask if I was going somewhere with the carrier--to which I responded "yes, I need to get him to the vet right now" he then said "I'm sorry, I need that carrier back, can you switch him to another one?" Fortunatley, I was focused on the task at hand, which meant that Ididn't react emotionally to that (which would have been bad, as I prob would have shoved the carrier someplace that it would have been difficult for him to retrieve) I switched the carriers out and was on my way.

When I got to the vet and she looked at his leg--it was determined that his leg was prettty much gone--it was locked up from his toes to his hip and there were only 2 treatment options available at this time--one was euthanasia and the other was amputation. As I stood there, looking down at his little face, I remember thinking "look at this face, he is not ready--I don't know how we could send him to the bridge" while also thinking "we don't even know how old he is, or any other health problems--is it fair to expect him to acclimate to a lost limb, after the life he's probably already had?

Knowing what a difficult decision we faced--the dr said we didn't have to decide "right now" that this had been going on for quite some time, and as long as we treated him, we could think about it and let her know on Monday. So I gratefully grabbed that option--they cleaned it as best they could, put topical antibiotic on it, wrapped it (pretty much casted it) and then put him on a very high dose of antibiotic.

He and I went back to the shelter and after soulsearching and research--we made the decision to amputate (I have to add that he never even tried to take the cast off--which is amazing, even for a sick ferret) His leg was removed that Monday and he slowly recovered. However, he seemed to be exceptionally lethargic, so we brought him back to the vet where he was diagnosed with Insulinoma and subsequently put on Prednisone.

He continued to slowly improve, even sometimes doing a little "modified war dance" and nibbling at the director when he got frisky-until he started having seizures on Superbowl Sunday. The director called me in a panic around 11:30 PM--and between the 2 us of, we were able to get him back.

After some feeding and medication adjustments, he seems to be doing ok and is hanging in there.

He is on a long road--but hopefully with the love and care we've been giving him, he will continue to improve.