Animal Medical Issues.... Spanxy's Lymphoma & Adrenal Gland Tumor updates

Well... Well.. Well. where should I start....?

Recently after his bath

Spanxy is still hanging in there although his 2 cancers and whatever else is going on in his system is making everything hard to treat. Lets recap He is Lymphoma, adrenal Gland Tumor and an enlarged spleen. Enlarge Spleen which maybe caused by the Lymphoma... Anyways... So he has been on Carafate for probably the last year of his life to keep his gastric ulcers away because the lymphoma is in his intestines. He also goes on and off 2 types of Antibiotics as needed... along with SubQ fluids and syringe feeding when his ulcers are acting up... Which in the last few months haven't acted up at all till just recently and we have had to start his Antibiotics again. He is also on Pred to try to shrink his tumors down and to hold off inflammation in his system as much as possible but this also has its down falls and draw backs... Once you start them on pred for lymphoma it only works for so long... And the cancer is also harder to treat if you decide on an actual treatment but there is no cure and it would only by him a few months... At which he would be sick if we would have done kemo or radiation... So we decided against that and any invasion procedures to remove his viable tumor and enlarged spleen.  The last ferrtonin chip ( helps with symptoms caused by the adrenal gland tumor)  has not seemed to help him get his hair back, with muscle tone, aggression, hind leg weakness, really anything it did help with the first time... In the last 4 months or so he has now started retaining fluid in his abdomen and is having more back leg weakness as caused by the cancers. But there is no cancerous cells in the fluid which is good. So the most invasive thing we have put him through is having the fluid removed from his belly twice... and once we do he is like a new lil Ferret again. So after the 2nd time we started him on Lasik which seemed to help at first but now isn't seeming to help as much and I am going to have to have his belly drained again very soon. He is also eating just chicken baby food, ferretvite, and Ferret duck soup mixed in.. The last two so he can get some vitamins.

It has been a long road... His original estimate was 3 to 6 months of life... and that was almost a year ago... He is our lil fighter there is no doubt about that... He has been so strong but lately he has been worrying me more and more. Fingers crossed and prayers going out that he still has more fight left in him to make it through these ulcers again...

Before his belly was drained

After They drained him lost almost 2 pds

Gaia Chicken Undate & Spanxy Ferret Going to the vet

She is still fluffy... her comb is still not bright red.... She is looking unkempt...  She isn't walking around being a happy chicken... She is standing still, fluffed up, looking miserable.... So I am not sure if she is egg bound again... or if she has an infection from the last time she was bound... Maybe there was something left and it wasn't just a yolk ball... She is still eating... she spends alot of time at the feeder and if I throw the eggs in and bust them she runs over to eat them, all excited!. She even stalks the eggs... If someone has laid one she will stand there beside it till someone comes outside and busts it open for her to get.... But she used to be the chicken that would run over and bust the egg herself. She was the egg destroyer!  But I think it is time to have her spayed! So she can have a good guilty of life..

 We have an appointment Friday with a vet I have never had the chickens to. She is an exotic vet that I guess will see chickens. She is at the same location as my normal avian vet. But he is out for the rest of the week. So I am taking Gaia and Spanx our Ferret to the vet Friday.

Spanxy is the last ferret we have. He is doing well although he lost his cage mate over a month ago. He did seem lost without her for the first few days. But we have been visiting with him more and he has been doing ok. But he is showing more symptoms of Adrenal Gland disease. He is losing muscle around his back hips pretty severely and is what I am going to consider, getting a pot belly. He has minimal hair loss right above his tail that comes and goes and his tail is bare but normally it all grows back after his spring shedding. So I am not sure exactly what is going on with him. But I think I have a good idea and I am trying to decide if he has adrenal gland disease do I have the surgery? The same surgery that we lost Sade having? do we treat him with hormone or tummer killing drugs? do we let him live out his life as happy as possible? I don't want to give up on him... I want to do everything possible for him to have a good guilty of life. I am just not sure what that is right now...

So many hard decisions in a matter of a few days.... I wish everything would just calm done for a while and give me a chance to sit back and breath...

Abu

This evening I found Abu really out of it in the bottom on her cage and rushed her to the vet. We could not find any ferret specialists but the vet on call did all she could. When they brought her back to me she was almost gone. She displayed with all the signs of being hypoglycemic but we just caught it to late... So we made the decision to have her euthanised. We love her so much. She crossed the Rainbow Bridge around 7:55pm tonight. She will be terribly missed not only by us but by her cage mate Spanx.

This is Abu last fall. 

Vegan MOFO Day 26- Black Friday and a Vet appointment for Spanx

Black Friday wasn't as interesting this year as I would have hoped. I was looking forward to it for a couple months. I was looking at the black Friday websites everyday waiting for the adds to come out. Specially Walmart they are normally my first big stop. But then the Walmart paper came out and there Black Friday add was split into..... Half at Midnight and Half at 5am.... I live an hour away.. there was no way I was going to at Midnight and waiting or returning at 5am when they opened. 

We wanted a 42" tv and some games. So instead of going out at 5am I went to Target and purchased a 40" tv for the same price as the 42" I was going to buy... I would smack myself later for this...

We came home Thanksgiving evening and laid down to take a nap after visiting with his family for a while. I never fell asleep. But that was ok. The adrenalin of the evening was kicking in and I was ready to shop. we show up at Walmart around 9pm and people started showing up around 9:30pm. We waited by the PS3 games till midnight and then kaos broke loss. We got all 7 PS3 games we wanted we were first in line. Plus I grabbed a Wii game and A game for Chey's DS. Then I went and grabbed some picture frames and a few other things. Plus I price matched an 8GB memory card for my new Nikon. Price matched it for $12.88.  O yeah and I got my first 2 blue ray movies....

Don't have a PS3 yet but we have a bunch of games!!!! $10 each on Black Friday plus two I got off like for $12.99 each. Got my wii game for $10. DS game for $7, The dark Knight for $5 and The Wizard of Oz for $10. So we made out on games!!! Now we just need to purchase a PS3...lol

After our Quick Walmart visit we went home. We had to get up early to go back to Mo-town to take Spanx to the vet. The day before Thanksgiving I noticed he had two swellings about were his Lymph nodes should be. So I made him an appointment as soon as we could get him in. They took a sample to test for Lymphoma. Luckily  4 days later the test came back good. but while we waited Abu also swelled up. The Vet doesn't know why this is happening. she said the test said some kind of infection so they are both on Antibiotics.

After the long vet appointment we drove across town to Mountain Peoples Market only to find out they were closed. So we went to Walmart... where what did my wondering eyes see..... the stupid 42" tv the I wanted... They still had it ins stock.... Evil people!!!! the only time I have ever not waited and just purchased something in advance and they had to have the tv when I walked in to Walmart at 2pm.... evil... Then went to target and looked through what they had left. I got my pyrex fridge set that I had been wanting so I could get rid of all my plastic storage bowls. I also got a kind set of sheets. Chey used her B-Day money and had me pick up a Barbie boat and Barbie.... So I even got a couple of things on Black Friday that I didn't think I would run into... 

But no interesting food.. Sorry...

Vegan MOFO Days 18-19-&20 Best Buy Sucks, Sick Ferret, and Gardening

I have had a long three days. Friday I went to Best Buy to pick up my camera I had ordered. What I didn't realize was it would turn into a four hour ordeal....

I called in a day before my order was due for pickup because John had to pick it up and that was his only day off. They said that was fine come in and they would give us the one they had in stock which was the same exact camera I had ordered.... The Nikon D3000 with VR lens and Extra 55mm-200mm VR lens. I get there the manager goes and gets the camera but the bar codes do not match. so he tells me to call  Best buy online and see what they want us to day. I finally have them cancel the order I had placed online but the credit company would not release the funds like they were supposed to so when I went to check out my card wouldn't run. It was a huge mess. But at about the 4 hour mark luckily the credit company finally released the money on my card and I could finally check out.  The guy who waited on us at the store was really great though. All the managers are worthless... :)

 I was so frazzled by that time I couldn't even think of the groceries I needed at the store so we stopped and ate, went to TJ maxx (didn't get anything), stopped at Giant Eagle to try to remind me what I needed.. no such luck so I gave up and went home.

I came home and my day gets even more stressfull. I go to check on the ferrets. I pick Abu up and she is skin and bones. Ferrets loss weight and get dehydrated very quickly. She had been fine the morning before. I put her down and she couldn't walk. She would curl her toes under and and her back hips would fall over to the side. So I gave her 2 raisins in case it was her blood sugar. Then I mixed up some "Duck soup" (which isn't duck it is a dry mix of food and vitamins for sick ferrets) , with baby food, and Ferretvite, and water.

 She was very dehydrated and I knew I had to get food and water into her or as weak as she was she wouldn't make it through the night. I fed her 5 to 10mls of this food mix ever 30mins to 1hour that evening into the late night. I also gave her a 1ml dose of carafate for her tummy. She was grinding her teeth which normally means tummy pain.

 I got up and called the vet bright and early Friday morning. When we got there she was eating a little more and was more alert. They took a stool sample and was getting ready to take a blood sample to check kidney function & send me home with two antibiotics, carafate & SubQ fluids for stomach ulcers. But her stool sample came back with coccidia in it so now we are treating her for coccidia and hoping that is the issue. But normally coccidia doesn't pose a problem unless there is an underlying issue. So fingers crossed it is just the cccidia. But it really could be anything from ulcers to cancer. She is 7 and ferrets have a high instance for cancer. I am hoping for the best. All day I fed her every couple hours and gave her her meds and SubQ fluids. After her SubQ fluids she spunked up a little. She is on Albon to take care of the parasite with 20ml subQ fluids once a day as long as she is taking the meds. After meds are finished fluids are as needed.

There are Three links on coccidia above just click on of the "coccidia" s above and it will take you to some information about it.

Today she is doing better. I am feeding her ever 2 to 4 hours and she is taking in any were from 15 to 35mls. Which is really good. she is supposed to take in from 90-120mls of food a day. She is also walking better. she is no longer curling her toes and she is gaining her weight back quickly. Even her hip bones that had been out just yesterday is filling it. It is crazy with ferrets how fast they can go down and come back. Fingers crossed she will continue to get better and that Spanx will not get coccidia....

Abu slowly eating her food mix. This is really good for sick ferrets and will help them
gain there weight back, get strong, and healthy again. Plus they love it.

Looking more alert when she wakes up now.

Spanx wondering where his sure of the food mix is...

On the food side... Nothing interesting. So many things have been going on I have been slacking on the cooking. I am getting ready to Thanksgiving... or trying to. I still need to go grocery shopping and I am not sure when I am going to get the chance to do that with a sick ferret on my hands. I hope to do it Monday or Tuesday. I hope she is feeling better by then and can eat her regular food while I am at the store. I have been being sustained on Organic Raisin Bran & almond milk, organic apples & organic creamy peanut butter and today I had my fave quick lunch of organic kidney beans, broccoli & organic potato w/ smart balance light and salt.

Gardening... Although most gardening is over for the year I have left some kale and herbs out to see how long into the fall I can grow cold weather crops. Right now I have kale and catnip still growing even though at night it has been getting about 30F. I have noticed that the kale has started to wilt some. But the catnip is still going strong. Next summer I might make some cold crop boxes for next fall/winter.

Kale

Catnip

Abu Losing weight

A couple weeks ago on a Friday we noticed Abu, our female ferret was losing some weight. Some weight is alot of weight for ferrets. Since they only weigh about 2 pds. She was lethargic, hard to wake up, and just not herself. I took her to the vet on Monday. We couldn't get into see our normal ferret vet. So we decided to go to the vet I took Big Red, our hen to. She is an exotic vet who normally see animals like ferrets, not chickens... :) She was so busy that day we had to wait forever because they were so busy they had just fit us in between some appointments. I took both the ferrets with me and Spanx was so hyper active he was walking all over Abu and she was already feeling icky. Well when we finally got into see her Abu decided to latch on to her hand before I could get out that she nips.. oops. But atleast she didn't bring blood. But the vet wasn't to happy about being nipped. But I was thinking in the back of my head... She is an exotic vet... shouldn't she know ferrets nip... :) . She talked to me about the symptoms and asked alot of questions and instead of treating her they way our normally vet treats them with 2 Antibiotics & carafate. She told me to switch her food back to Marshells from EVO and said because they might have Adrenal tumors it would be better to keep them on lower protein. And told me to give them Fish oil. Yuck.. right... Gave us some carafate tablets and told me to call if she continued to lose weight. She really took toime to decide how to treat her. She kept leaving the room and coming back to ask more questions. Then she would stand there and think and then leave again. I was so used to treating them with antibiotics when something like this happens I figured I would watch her closely for a couple days till our regular ferret vet could fit her in. But to my surprise after I switched the food, sprinkled it with the fish oil, and I didn't even give her the carafate she started doing better. Gaining weight, getting more energy, and just getting back to her normal self. She even stopped grinding her teeth and I haven't noticed her pulling at her mouth recently. She is also easier to wake up. So I would say awesome.

But it also made me notice that I have been giving them alot of antibiotics. I, myself will not take meds unless I absolutely have to. I don't mean just prescriptions like antibiotics & birth control. I mean like stuff clear down to over the counter sinus pills, aleve, & vitamins. And I hate giving stuff like wormers and vaccinations to the animals. But with the ferrets I thought that was the only thing I could do. And now I see how just a simple change and some extra fat that in the wild they would naturally get for themselves can totally change an ailment. I know fish oil is not vegan and I might even get some comments because of that. But when I took these animals in I took on the responsibility of doing everything I can to keep them safe, happy, and healthy. And who ever has animals should take on that responsibility or don't have them. Rescuing animals is awesome but only if you are going to care for them.

But I am glad she is doing better and I am now putting Fish oil in my list of good ferret "foods". Because it really helped!