It was a week ago today and I really thought I was going to lose Kahlua!

I was taking her to see the vet in the afternoon so around mid-morning, I went to get her as I’d prepared the smoothy for her to drink. She was lying under the cover of the hammock and when I pulled it back, I saw her doing the same as she did on Christmas Eve. She had her lips back in a grimace and was breathing rapidly and it was very shallow.

My heart sank! I picked her up and thought I’d better rub some Nutrigel on her gums just in case it was some weird blood sugar drop symptom. I did that but she didn’t snap out of it, so I kept her lying on my lap, breathing hard.

It took about 1/2 hour before she seemed to come out of it and her breathing calmed down. I picked up the smoothy dish and put it on my lap near her and she just rested her head on the rim and started to lick tiredly – it was almost like it was too much effort for her to lift her head. I looked at her little face and her eyes seemed almost cloudy and unfocused and I really thought she was about to check out on me.

Slowly, very slowly, she seemed to regain her strength and I helped her stand so that she could lick more easily. She must have been very hungry because she almost finished all the smoothy, and there was about 1/2 cup of pet milk in the dish, together with the rest of the goodies I had added. Normally all 4 ferrets drink from the dish but here it was only Kahlua.

I put her down when she’d had enough and the poor thing could hardly walk. She seemed to go a few paces then stop, like she was exhausted. I was watching her so carefully and couldn’t understand why she had so little strength. Then I remembered Kaos and how she was when she had cardiomyopathy so I was certain that, on top of her insulinoma, Kahlua was suffering from a heart complaint!!

That made sense to me – the rapid shallow breathing; the time she lay like road kill, splat against the floor with her arms and legs sticking out; the way she could hardly walk now without resting every few seconds.

I felt really depressed seeing her like this and was so worried that when I took her to see our vet, Fiona would say that it really was time for Kahlua to have her final injection.

However … by the time I had to pick her up and take her to the vet, Kahlua seemed fine! All my hand wringing and heart pain that I had watching her look so ill faded into the distance – my little silvermitt looked like she was 100% normal!

What on earth would I show the vet – a seemingly healthy ferret with pink gums and clear eyes, and no symptoms of what affected her earlier. And, to make matters more frustrating, my digital camera wasn’t working so I couldn’t even take photos of what she looked like when she had these weird episodes! Isn’t that always the way – grrrrrr!

So, we went to Fiona and I told her my worries about heart problems and so Fiona listened to her heart, to her lungs and to her abdomen. All 3 sounded clear and free of any fluid build up, so Fiona thought it was very unlikely that Kahlua had heart problems, but she did say that if there was another episode of that shallow breathing, then we’d have to X-ray her to see what was going on inside.

Kahlua got her prednisone and after having been on it for a week, I must say she seems a lot better. Not quite weasel wardancing but certainly walking around the house more often and seemingly happy.

I’ve also started giving her some pet milk with the contents of a Transfer Factor Plus capsule added to it, with 1/2ml of Poly-MVA and 1/2ml Marine Phyto Plankton added to it on alternate days. She laps it up happily so I have fingers crossed that it’s doing some good and might even shrink that wretched tumour inside of her.

We shall see how she goes. I hope I’ll keep her for longer than Muis had with us but only time will tell.

Other articles you might like;

Tagged with: • • •

Filed under: Ferret Illnesses • Insulinoma in Ferrets

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!