Wednesday, April 01, 2009

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.


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