OH POOP!!!

well...
um...well....
I guess I will have to 'foster' for 8-10 years my first ever 'official' rescue... LOL...

Meet "Sonny"...[his name was "Binky"..nope...can't do that to him...LOL...] He was named after a dear friend of mine...with the help of Jean...:) He looks like my Eddie did when he was a baby...:) He is approx. 3 months old...MF...i am a goner... He is playing with Angel right now in the tube...:)

sigh...I have no brains...plenty of heart..but no brains...;-)

I wish I knew what happened...it has all been a nightmare...

He has had this reoccuring lump on his neck...it came..got about as big as a small grape... it went away...over and over in the 3 months we had him...

Well...the day before Halloween it was there...the size of a small grape again...I did not worry..it never seemed to hurt him or affect him in any way...but then Halloween morning... it was the whole side of his neck...I freaked...quietly...Tommy was still asleep...then I could not stand it any longer and went and woke Tommy up 1/2 hr. early and told him we had to take Sonny to the vet...

We called the vet at 11:30 and they said to bring him in at 1:45...

He was already sleeping in the small cage...so I just removed Snow from it and closed it up...got the water and a small amount of food ready...and we left...

Part way there [it is a 1 hour drive] I took him out of the cage to hold him...he was burning up...so I told them when we got there that he had a temp...I weighed him...3.1 lbs...we took him in the room...the assistant guy took his temp...Sonny was not happy...but he let him do it...it was 106º...he commented that "he was cooking!"...

Then Dr. R. came in and looked at him...checked him out...said it looked like an infection ...like maybe one of the other ferrets bit him and maybe a piece of tooth got left in there... I asked why it kept coming and going...he said probably it would flair up and his body would fight the infection and it would go down..then come back and he would fight it off again... this time he could not fight it off...

So he said they could do surgery that afternoon to remove it...and send the tissue for pathology...my vet is not one to rush into surgery, so if he suggested it, it was needed.

They found no foreign object in there...TONS of pus...and could not remove all the damaged tissue...I asked why...he said Sonny would have had no neck left...:(

They kept him over night...and if all was fine in the morning...we could go get him...they sent the tissue off for pathology...saying that it is unusual to have pus with cancerous tissue...but they need to know what it is...

My poor baby was only 6 months old!!!!...no telling what that 3 yr. old put him thru before his mother turned him in to the humane society!

My poor baby...but the ppl at the vet thought he was the cutest thing...sleeping on his back...:)

Then...a call from the vet...November 1, 2001...7:30 a.m....

My ray of sunshine...my healthiest, happiest, sweetest, 6 month old baby boy is gone.

He died overnight at the vets...he says he thinks the 106º temp was too much for him...I held and snuggled with Sonny several times a day...he did not even have a temp till the day I took him in...I did not even get to tell him about the bridge...he was only having that thing removed from his neck!

I feel so cheated...

Tommy cried...Sonny is the only one Tommy has ever cried for...

Well...that is what I know...the path. on the tissue will be back next week...I certainly hope it was something terrible...something he would have died from...cause right now...I feel like I killed him...

Why did I not think to ask if we should have done a round of antibiotics to fight off the infection first and get his temp down?...so much of it now is a blur...I just know my vet thought this was what needed to be done...but I never even thought to ask if there was another way...and I have to believe if there had been...he would have said so...he is not one to jump into surgery if there was another option...

All I know right now is the horrible pain of no Sonny in my home...he was so much of my day-to-day living...the laughter...his antics...his just being there...so beautiful...so full of life that it affected everyone around him...

Now I feel empty...

Maybe he was so special cause God never intended him to be here long...I don't know...

Diagnosis: Haired skin, subcutis and skeletal muscle from neck: Severe, focally extensive, chronic, suppurative, hemorrhagic and lymphoplasmacytic inflammation, with fibroplasia.

Comment: The histopathologic findings are consistent with the clinical assessment of an abscess.

Although causative agents are not observed, bacterial infection is likely.

Thomas Lipscomb, D.V.M., A.C.V.P.