I am very tired, so bear with me. Am up now to more than just feeling numb and trying to smile. Still mostly numb, but Warp stroked me with her tiny white paw because I was sad and the others are also being very loving. Wish Steve could have taken today off from work. Niether of us had more than a hour of sleep last night as I am sure you realize from the condition of this letter.

For those who do not know, Meeteetse was an 8 year old, chocolate standard, Marshall Farm girl (known age within a month or so since she came here as an injured and abused kit). For some time now she has been battling probable lympho and a re-occurance of insulinoma, with a great deal of medical help. At her half-past midnight medicating Meeteetse began hyper- salivating and there was some blood in it. At 3:30 she began having terrible pain. We already knew that there was nothing beyond what had already been done for her --that when the pain went out of control this time that her chances were past. Even though it was too close, we dosed her again with her Butorphanol (sp?) because we could not stand her hurting. That actually held her for 4 and 1/2 hours more. Had to give her one more dose to make her comfy enough then and then called vet and took her in for a mercy shot.

She never got to use her wheelchair; her nodes never went down enough again but she loved her sling made from pantyhose. We'll keep the wheelchair for future use but need to learn about it with one of the others.

She played on and off right up till late night before she died, and cuddled with the other ferrets right up till early morning. (Warp was in the room with her, and she'd been with the others up till something like 10 p.m..

Meeteetse was named for one of the black-footed ferret kits in Sybille, WY because when she came here her happy face was almost identical to that of one of the BBF kits.

She had been battered as a kit by a pet store owner. She bit, but she had a reason to bite; a deciduous canine had become caught between two erupting adult teeth, and a painful infection had begun. They never treated her, just tried to beat her out of biting. I got the canine out with forceps right away and we got her to the vet. He found that she was border-line hyperthyroid with a zooming heart rate. At first he was also worried about her protruding nodes, as were we... but it turned out to be her norm. He was least worried by her infection and her tail with its broken bones from battering, though he was concerned. With her heart rate everyone thought she'd die young but she fooled the experts. She never had a normal rate but she did well and she was awake about 3 times as much as any of the others.

She never bit again once her mouth was fixed, but she often would hold my big toe between her teeth if she wanted to tell me that she didn't feel well.

She was in love with the voice of Richard Harris at National Public Radio and would dance for his voice, then climb up to the speakers and kiss them. When she got too old to climb she still loved it when he'd be on the radio. Because of this she was mentioned three times through the years on "All Things Considered" and they couldn't have found a sweeter girl to mention.

[National Public Radio did an obit for her on an episode of Weekend All Things Considered? She had been a favorite at NPR because she worshipped the voice of Richard Harris, the head science reporter, so when they realized she had passed away they called and talked with us and did an obit over the radio for millions of listeners.]

For her, begging and playing cute were art forms, and no one ever did a better job of climbing up pants legs to whisker-tickle her humans behind their knees.

That's all I can say right now. We miss her, but mostly we're still pretty numb.

*Sew the feet together for the sling and roll the top and sew it into a handle, select length depending on your height;

*That pain meds can be very helpful in terminal lympho;

*And that at times Prednisone can be pegged to maximum dose near the end with lympho to give some extra quality time together like the added 5 days she got and enjoyed -- It helped control her pain.