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.