My Precious Beautiful :'(
I expect I'm going to wind up having to euthanize Luci soon. She won't give up, and I won't give up on her just yet. Luci may rebound a bit. She has before. But she can barely use her hindlegs now, and at least the last day not well enough to even get onto her litter pad. She doesn't mind baths at least. And it's not diarrhea and it's not giving her a painful rash. Most of her life is spent asleep now, but she's alert and purposeful when she wakes up. And occasionally energetic. She still likes to eat some things, and likes to play with plastic bags and burrow in towels. But the good times are getting fewer and shorter, and the bad times seem to be getting more bad. She barely tolerates her prednisolone any more. Her worst suffering right now seems to be that, and a few seconds a day of fighting to keep some bad-tasting liquid out of her mouth isn't so much I won't let her have a little more time. And when the yucky moment is over with, she snuggles up and licks her Ferretone. She used to love Benadryl, but now that's almost as bad to her. I'm taking her off that as of tonight; even if the lump on her foot is a mast cell tumor the odds it will kill her before something else does are tiny and kind of irrelevant. That will make it a little more pleasant for her. Things don't have to get a lot worse though before the bad will outweigh the good, and I won't torture her to spare myself a few days of missing her.
Ayame's the opposite with the Benadryl at least, neglecting to give Ayame her dose seems to hurt her feelings. I don't even have to scruff her, she tries to suck it out of the syringe. She doesn't like the pred either, but her solution is to lap it up fast and be done with it. Nobody likes prednisolone, it's very bitter. But with the flavored PediaPred it shouldn't be as bad as it seems to be for Luci now. It wasn't until recently.
She may rebound a bit; some of this is due to last week's diarrhea and lost appetite, and with the antibiotics she's having firm stools and she's eating again, enough if not heartily. She can maybe regain some strength again, but probably not much and probably not for long. When Koda reached this point she only had a couple of days left before her organs shut down. Luci isn't Koda, but there's only so long even the world's best ferret can survive. I think Ayame knows too. She goes over to sniff at Luci regularly, which is unusual for her, and then sits against my feet and won't get off.
Luci can't live forever, but as ferrets go she came closer than most. If it's not in the next few days it's still going to be some time soon. She's easily the oldest I've ever had, and the vet said Luci is now her standard pep talk to people with terrible diagnoses. With loving care, she surprised everyone time and time again. She had a life expectancy after diagnosis of less than half this long, maybe less than a quarter. Last June she had a life expectancy of a month. She's come very close to turning that month into a year. (Even Koda really went twice as long as expected considering how severe her insulinoma was when diagnosed. Luci more than doubled Koda's survival already, though she wasn't nearly as severe as Koda was at the time). I really didn't expect Luci to live to see 2011, much less 2012. Every day I've had her for the last year and a half has been a surprise and a delight, waking up or coming home to find her still there for me. I couldn't have asked for a better ferret.
Ayame's the opposite with the Benadryl at least, neglecting to give Ayame her dose seems to hurt her feelings. I don't even have to scruff her, she tries to suck it out of the syringe. She doesn't like the pred either, but her solution is to lap it up fast and be done with it. Nobody likes prednisolone, it's very bitter. But with the flavored PediaPred it shouldn't be as bad as it seems to be for Luci now. It wasn't until recently.
She may rebound a bit; some of this is due to last week's diarrhea and lost appetite, and with the antibiotics she's having firm stools and she's eating again, enough if not heartily. She can maybe regain some strength again, but probably not much and probably not for long. When Koda reached this point she only had a couple of days left before her organs shut down. Luci isn't Koda, but there's only so long even the world's best ferret can survive. I think Ayame knows too. She goes over to sniff at Luci regularly, which is unusual for her, and then sits against my feet and won't get off.
Luci can't live forever, but as ferrets go she came closer than most. If it's not in the next few days it's still going to be some time soon. She's easily the oldest I've ever had, and the vet said Luci is now her standard pep talk to people with terrible diagnoses. With loving care, she surprised everyone time and time again. She had a life expectancy after diagnosis of less than half this long, maybe less than a quarter. Last June she had a life expectancy of a month. She's come very close to turning that month into a year. (Even Koda really went twice as long as expected considering how severe her insulinoma was when diagnosed. Luci more than doubled Koda's survival already, though she wasn't nearly as severe as Koda was at the time). I really didn't expect Luci to live to see 2011, much less 2012. Every day I've had her for the last year and a half has been a surprise and a delight, waking up or coming home to find her still there for me. I couldn't have asked for a better ferret.