Feb 062013
 

After a couple days of seemingly good recovery, Minion isn’t doing so well tonight. He has been a bit listless tonight, with little appetite, poor stools..and he threw up a little bit earlier. We’ve talked with our vet, and if he throws up again after this last feeding, he’s heading back in to see if there’s anything we can do for him. More as it develops.

Feb 012013
 

Well…Minion just has all the luck. Or lack thereof. Poor guy was crying last Monday, keeping one eye shut. Nothing wrong with the eye that we could see that night….but the following evening he started developing a white spot in it, and was still keeping it closed. Off to the vet we go! He had an abscess forming in his eye, likely from it getting scratched during play.

We got him on some pain meds, and topical eye drops. A week later and its looking great! He has to keep getting eyes drops for several more days to be safe, but he gets to keep seeing at least!

But now for the bad news…his blood sugar has gone topsy turvy, so he’s developed insulinoma. And…he has a mass in his abdomen. He doesn’t like it being probed. We don’t know what it is, and the only way to find out is surgery. And our boy is getting old and less likely to handle that well, especially since he just had a round back in September.

So Minion gets daily meds for the insulinoma, and we have some more worrying and stress over how best to care for the little guy. Not a good day for me so far.

The only bright spot of the visit is Zoe, who went along for her checkup as well. Her blood work is improved from last month, so she’s holding on strong and doing better than expected at least.

Oct 072012
 

Minion has finished all his meds as of Friday, and we’ve also put him back in the cage with the others. He’s taking part in playtimes, and is as playful and cute as ever. He’s just got the poodle haircut to deal with for a while longer, but we’re investigating a toupee as per his request. Stay tuned for other news that the little guy’s surgery caused us to postpone…

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Sep 272012
 

We’ve been giving the little guy various meds 5 times daily. He still doesn’t like them (big surprise) but he’s very enthusiastic about treats afterwards. He’s also eaten some of his liquid carnivore care diet on his own accord a couple times. We still hand feed him that just as often however, and we’ve watered it down some since he wasnt making the effort to drink as much as we wanted.

His stools have been decent (with the exception of a very scary hairball that quite puzzled us for a while), and our reports on his progress to his doctor have been met with enthusiasm and praise for what so far is a very speedy recovery in her opinion. The medicine continues through Sunday at least, and we’re still keeping him separated from the others in the sick cage, sharing the office with us. He’s getting a bit restless at times, when the meds are wearing off and nearing his next dose; he tried to climb the cage wall once today!
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Michele is feeling better as well, but I’m still wishing I could claw my sinuses out of my head.

Sep 262012
 

Sorry for no updates on him yesterday. He has 4 different medicines we have to give him at different intervals, and we are pretty much living by his sick cage to keep an eye on him. And to top it off we are either sick, or something allergenic has made it into the house…Michele and I are both feeling horrible.

We will put up more details later on.

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Sep 242012
 

After a day at the vet with IV fluids and dextrose, Minion’s condition had not improved; it had actually worsened slightly. His blood sugar wasn’t stabilizing, he wouldn’t eat, and he vomited some more. So slightly after 11pm we made the decision to have him go in for surgery…we managed to make it to the vet a couple minutes before our ferret specialist arrived (just after midnight), so we got to see him prior to the surgery, then we waited it out.

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He came through ok at around 1:15am, and a blockage was removed. We don’t know what the blockage is, or where it came from (we are in the process of tearing the playroom apart trying to identify and remove it’s source). They also looked at his pancreas and his adrenal glands, and he showed no signs of tumors or problems there, which is happy news. He’s in recovery today, and has been eating his carnivore care diet enthusiastically. His bloodwork is good, but he is having some bloody stool.

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We did just get a call that a mistake was made in his treatment just prior to surgery. A prep medicine was misread as a steroid instead of the dextrose supplement, so he was on a largish dose of that for a couple hours. They’re watching him closely, and have done some research and don’t believe it’s going to harm him; the suspected side effects they’re watching out for are ulcers, so they’re giving him a very strong acid inhibitor, and are going to keep him an extra day to monitor his recovery and make sure there are no ill effects.

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