Spring cleaning at the "Fun House" and other things.

Well springtime means some cleaning up is going to get done around the
house, specifically the room where my little buddies spend their time. It
wouldn't be so bad if they could hit the litter box a little more accurately.
Tends to get smelly after a while, then one day a couple weeks ago, while
I was tending LizBeth, I noticed on the second floor of the kids condo,
that is what I call the group of Ozzie, Sasha, and the late LizBeth since
they are all relative youngsters, a curious big ball of something right at
the bottom of the ramp up to the 3rd floor. Closer inspection showed
it to be something like people find dropped from airliners, except NOT
frozen. Well this was pretty gross. someone was being very lazy. So,
I am going to have to take their home outside on a warm day and take
the power washer with some bleach to it. JJ isn't exactly mister clean
either. His mess is caused by slopping his morning soup all over
creation. For good measure I will probably do Lil's too, while I have
the power washer.

A few days ago, Maurice came by to implant melatonin chips in Lil and JJ,
and pick up some implants I had for his kids. Fortunately it all went
smoothly this time around, the last few times getting the implant
into Lil has been a problem because her hair is so thick the implant
would get caught in it and pop back out. This time we had good luck
and he got it in her first try.

Well, I will keep this one short, as I can think of nothing else. On
May 16th, JJ and I will be at the Boston Children's Museum with
the Ferretwise crew meeting and greeting all the kids that want
to stop by. We always have fun there. I think we will be there
between 10am and 2pm, Alicia will leave a comment if I am
wrong. Come by and say hi to the J-man, the handsomest
ferret boy around. He told me so! :-)

Fairwell Lizbeth

This past Monday April 30, 2009 at approximatelt 8 am one
of my charges, LizBeth, passed away, which made Monday
a pretty sad day for me. LizBeth was a ferret with an attitude.
She had teeth and new how to use them. I like to think she
held back for me because after a while living at my house,
she would let me give her nutrical on my fingertip without
taking a nip. She was my only ferret that had a warning label
on her file at the vets office. I was kinda proud of that for her.

A few weeks ago I had noticed she had lost a bunch of weight
even though she ate a lot, and she was having trouble with
her hind end. So we went off to see Dr G. He knows LizBeth
and was concerned she was so easy to do things too now,
that had never been the case before. So we took a blood
sample and sent it out, but that came back pretty normal. He
did an x-ray and it showed she had white stuff in her lungs,
so we decided to put her on a course of antibiotics cause he
thought it may be pneumonia. So we did that for a 14 day
course, but there was no change, and when x-rayed again
she looked the same. So he knocked her out and took a
sample to send off. It came back that it was a
pyogranulomatous inflammation. This could be caused by
a foreign body. There were no cancerous cells in the stuff
in her lungs, but it could be anywhere.  So the treatment we
decided on was to really hit it with a bunch of antibiotics.
Amoxicillin, marboflaxin, and metacam.

During this whole thing she never lost her appetite. She would
have her soup in the morning, and all the Totally Ferret treats
she could eat. But she was always tired. She would sit on my
lap in a sleep sack and watch tv with me, and eat treats. The
last morning, I got up as usual and made everyones soup.
LizBeth didn't want any. I put some on my finger and she
licked it off a couple of times. Then she bit me, just a nip.
So I let her be and wrapped her in a blanket in her bed.
I had a physical therapy appointment, so I went to that. When
I got back an hour later, she must have just gone. So I
wrapped her in a blanket, and said goodbye. Fairwell
LizBeth Ozzie, Sasha, and I will miss you.