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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2015 18:03:04 GMT -5
My thoughts are with your sweet baby... I really hope she'll be alright. She's very lucky she has you taking care of her though. Good luck.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2015 19:55:44 GMT -5
A mostly positive update on Mocha! She is doing much better, seems stable now and is eating from the syringe like a pig. This is wonderful and it's looking like she will make it just fine until we can see the vet tomorrow. She is running around free ranging and exploring as I type this.
But bad news as well. It seems the seizure may have caused some brain damage because....Mocha's gone blind. She is ignoring everything visual including her favorite toys and Vanilla, crashing into things and pooping in the middle of the floor. She is "pathing" around like she is trying to get a sense of the layout of the room. It's a small price to pay considering how critical her condition seemed, but it certainly came as a surprise to us and may have explained some of her strange behavior yesterday. Hopefully this is the only damage from the episode. I will make sure our vet checks her eyes out among other things to see if she can confirm the blindness, we're already pretty convinced.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2015 20:57:18 GMT -5
oh gosh, I am so sorry. Curious to hear what vet says.
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Post by Heather on Apr 26, 2015 22:17:02 GMT -5
Please keep us updated. Good luck at the vets ciao
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Post by FireAngel on Apr 27, 2015 8:18:38 GMT -5
Good luck today!
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Post by crazylady on Apr 27, 2015 12:23:51 GMT -5
good luck please keep us updated take care bye for now BEV
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2015 16:36:17 GMT -5
We just got home from our vet visit. First, we were right, Mocha's completely blind now Our vet has more experience with ferrets than I thought which is wonderful. Everyone was astonished such a young ferret is having these problems. Our vet felt her internal organs and lymph nodes and didn't find anything unusual. She took some blood to send to the lab for a complete panel including blood glucose and we should get back the results tomorrow. Unfortunately because their in house blood glucose is calibrated for dogs and cats she didn't want to draw more blood to check it today. she thought it would be more useful to just wait for the lab results. Poor Mocha had to be sedated for the blood draw out of her jugular - the lab needed quite a bit for the full panel While she wants to wait for the lab results before making any diagnoses/decisions Mocha did get a shot of a corticosteroid for today. I will let you all know when I get the results back. We are crossing our fingers it's insulinoma at this point. The great news is that other than learning to be a blind ferret, she's 100% feeling better now. She even played with the chord leash around the tech's neck while he held her! Even if it is serious and she will decline again, we're so grateful to be given more time with Mocha. I will be doing my best to enrich her new sightless life the way I did when she could see, and loving the crud out of her of course! Thank you all for your continued support of our little fuzz. It's so good to find a community with such a passion for ferrets and with so much knowledge to share
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2015 17:02:54 GMT -5
I do hope she will be alright. Special needs animals are something special. I had a blind pug when I was in high school and she was a little angel. She ended up taking more care of me than I did of her. Good luck. Thank you for keeping us updated. <3
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2015 18:47:39 GMT -5
We got the bloodwork back today. Her blood glucose levels are normal, but she has an abnormally high amount of antibodies in her blood. My vet thought we should look into Aleutian Disease (ADV) and is also prescribing an antibiotic in case it is a bacterial infection. I'm not sure either of these would cause a seizure though, and I'm not sure she would have collapsed so severely and then rebounded 100% with only the blindness/deafness from the seizure but no other continual symptoms. I'm also a bit skeptical that it's a contagious illness since Vanilla is fine, although I know she could be an asymptomatic carrier or just very lucky. Today she is eating all by herself and having beautiful poops and normal colored urine. We have had various cat rescues in the past with FIP, panleukopenia, etc. and this just isn't presenting like a serious infection, but her bloodwork indicates something is up.
I still wonder whether it could have been insulinoma. She crashed and seized like you would expect in insulinoma, and the Karo Syrup really did perk her up notably, as did filling her belly with high protein soup. Other than the blindness/deafness she gained, she has no symptoms of illness remaining except the bloodwork showing antibodies, and I wonder if it's possible her blood glucose has returned to normal because she is at the beginning of the illness? I know it spikes in insulinoma and is not necessarily constantly low. She is young to have it, but there are a few reports of ferrets her age with the disease.
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Post by Heather on Apr 28, 2015 22:05:09 GMT -5
Are you on FB? I used to know Danee's contact addy but I don't anymore. Danee DeVore....she's dealt with ADV and had become very good with dealing with it's various components. It can be very aggressive or not have any symptoms at all. I know very little about it except for a time that people thought they'd won the battle against it. Others were saying it was just being mistaken for something else and being misdiagnosed. Danee has in the past been very approachable and very helpful in regards to this. You might want to get in touch with her if the diagnosis is indeed positive ciao
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2015 22:55:23 GMT -5
I hate to say it, but while I will consider contacting Danee DeVore, I think my vet is simply wrong about this. She also told me she believes a ferret at the Nature Center where I volunteer has ADV. This ferret has lived with a cagemate for at least a year and he is fine, not to mention her symptoms are completely different than Mocha's and don't seem terribly severe considering she is a rescue with a sketchy background. The main symptom this ferret presented with was weight loss, and she seems to have regained much of that weight and to be recovering well now. In fact I only found out my vet thinks this other ferret has ADV because the Nature Center's staff encouraged me to consider adopting her. She is extremely calm and gentle with other ferrets, hence they thought she would make a good cagemate for blind Mocha. They are looking to adopt her out because she is a special needs animal and a nibbler/biter of human flesh, no good for their education programs. They asked me to check with the vet about her illnesses so I would know what I was getting into before I considering adopting her, because she has had some health problems. That's another story for another day, but I'm not considering adding a ferret to the business until we make sure Mocha is not contagious. My point is, though, two ferrets with healthy cagemates and different symptoms who seem to be recovering fully probably do not both have a rare parvovirus.
I still think she is grasping at straws with that diagnosis, and the explanation is probably much simpler. Honestly, I'm starting to think Mocha caught some sort of bug, stopped eating and went badly hypoglycemic because the illness and lack of food combined was too much for her system. If she went off food slowly, we would not notice because she and Vanilla shared a food bowl so we could not monitor her intake. Ferrets do tend to mask symptoms until they get very ill, perhaps explaining why this happened "out of the blue" when we only noticed a cough earlier. This would explain the pre-seizure symptoms and the seizure. The seizure and related unconsciousness would explain the sudden blindness and deafness, as we already know. And this would explain the most perplexing thing - that she seemed to have a hypoglycemic seizure and revived with sugar, but is young for insulinoma and no longer has low blood sugar. Not to mention it would explain why she has a high level of antibodies in her bloodstream. I'm not trying to override my vet's advice or downplay what happened to Mocha, I love my vet and she is the professional, but I am the daughter of a doctor and I do have an uncanny knack for veterinary/animal health issues. If the pieces fit...
Mocha is racing around and even wrestling with Vanilla as I type this. She doesn't seem like a ferret in critical condition anymore! In fact I had to test her sight and hearing again today because the change in her is so remarkable, I can't believe she can navigate so well and so confidently blind. Obviously we are worried, but I think at her age it is safe to treat her with the antibiotics and assume she had an unlucky break unless she starts presenting with symptoms again. I know our veterinarians are used to providing a solid answer, and especially with ferrets they are used to diagnosing a serious illness when something like this happens. But I am going to stop reaching for a diagnosis and just watch her like a hawk in case she does present with more symptoms. After all, we thought she was at death's door and wouldn't make it overnight let alone until Monday, now she is "good as new". I will be turning my attention to making concessions for her new disability instead of trying to diagnose what seemingly has passed.
At this point I will not be adding more information to this thread unless Mocha presents with new symptoms or something else dramatic happens. I want to give you all a big thank you again for your support, kind words and advice during this emergency. I had no hope whatsoever that Mocha would pull through, and I certainly did not imagine she would overcome her illness AND her new deaf-blindness and be racing around with Vanilla again so soon. After the various tragedies we have had with pets in the past, it is heartwarming to see one improve so much after it seemed she was lost.
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Post by Heather on Apr 29, 2015 12:47:31 GMT -5
As ADV is a very simple test and I would be doing it, if nothing else to rule out it's possibility. ADV ferrets range from acute to no symptoms and is contagious during it's acute state. ciao
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Post by Blue on Apr 29, 2015 13:15:52 GMT -5
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Post by unclejoe on Apr 29, 2015 16:38:37 GMT -5
She's deaf too now? that's so sad, but Prissy has been both for well over a year (she's 8) and gets along ok. She still bumps into things a lot tho.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2015 12:40:56 GMT -5
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