(no subject)

We had our vet appointment for Pan this morning. He's still there, waiting for an ultrasound. In addition to the enlarged spleen, the vet felt another distinct mass, but she couldn't get at it clearly enough to tell for sure what it was. So, an ultrasound for identification of the mass, and if there are no major blood vessels in the way, a needle aspirate for a biopsy. Could be a lymph node, could be an adrenal gland. He also appears anemic, but that's only to be expected if he hasn't been eating enough. He's 200g below what his weight was back in July, but since he should have been putting on winter weight, I'd say he's really more like 300-350g below what he should be. His heart and lungs sound fine, so at least we can rule out any heart or lung disease. But the gist of it is that he's not a well ferret, and we won't know more until after the ultrasound. The two major contenders would be adrenal gland disease (I guess the best case scenario, sad as that is to say) or lymphoma. If it's the latter, I have to think long and hard about chemotherapy. When my older ferrets had lympho, saying no to chemo was easy, because clearly to me it was not worth making them suffer a lot for a few months just to buy them a few more months of not very high quality time. But with a younger ferret--I don't know. Anyway, I'll cross that bridge if and when I come to it. Pan clung to me throughout the visit and it was very hard to leave him there.

in other news, we had no heat or hot water this morning, but that's a small thing today.

(no subject)

I have been killing myself for the last two hours by researching lymphoma/lymphosarcoma in ferrets, and the more I read, the more it seems very likely that it's what Pan has. Nothing else makes sense--his appetite/bathroom habits don't indicate ulcers, his alertness doesn't indicate insulinoma, there should be a bunch of other things going on if it's adrenal. I keep reminding myself that I am not a vet and that I haven't yet heard his test results, ultrasound report and so on. But anemia, lethargy, general weakness, enlarged spleen and poorly defined mass in the abdomen all seem to point to lympho.

I have also found out that chemo works in only about 10 percent of cases, and even then one rarely sees full remission, just added time (although sometimes a couple of years of time). It is also so fantastically expensive as to be laughable, if this were the slightest bit funny. It sounds like a lot to put a ferret through, and reading the firsthand experiences of ferret owners who have had chemo done on their ferrets confirms this--the majority said they wouldn't do it again. So I think I'm ready with what I want to do if it's lympho--prednisone, drugs to fight anemia and whatever other random bits of straw-clutching medications are out there. Not chemo.

I do all this preparing for the worst, because usually one does that and then it turns out the worst doesn't happen and you had overprepared. That is my hope.

(no subject)

Well, good thing I had prepared for the worst. The unknown mass was his liver, which indicates a fairly advanced state of things, and lymph nodes throughout his body are enlarged. White blood cell count was 26,000 (normal is 2,000 - 10,000). I'll get the results of the spleen and liver aspirates next week, but that's really just a formality.

Time to go bring Pan home and give him all the hugs and kisses and treats a ferret could ever want.

(no subject)

When we brought Pan home, he was the most chipper we have seen him in over a week. He dug at the door until we let him out of the bedroom, he trotted around without falling or resting, he even tunneled under the armchair cover, which involved actually climbing up the armchair. He looked brighter, and was clearly happy to be home. If he's feeling this much better without drugs yet, then I hope drugs will help even more. Although having seen his ultrasounds--well, anyway. He looks good, and he's not on death's doorstep at this moment.

Which makes me second-guess myself a bit about the chemo. I also talked to a woman whose ferret went through this new chemo regimen that doens't require i.v. delivery, and her ferret had a complete remission and a year later is still fine. On the other hand, her ferret had only peripheral lymphoma (i.e., only the lymph nodes in the extremities were affected, no torso lymph nodes and no organs), which made him an excellent candidate for chemo. She said he didn't have nausea or other side effects, but I'm a bit skeptical about how one would really know if a ferret has a headache or not.

Pan just trotted through the room as I am writing this, without too much sliding. Sigh.