This is my furbaby, Pandora. In her youth I would call my baby a feisty princess. She had an attitude and wanted things her way. I reorganized her cage? Well it wasn't how she liked it so she's going to re-reorganize! lol
I've had this girl since she was little and I've comforted her through pain, sickness, and loss. There's
been good times, great times, and frustrating times, but I love her dearly. (Yes, this is the same ferret as above. I have no idea why but her color changed over time. She started with dark all over and only a little white on her belly and face. Now she has a silver blaze on her head, a silver tip of her tail, and a few silver guard hairs; the rest is all white!)
She is the same age as Thomas; 9 years old. For a human that's still young, not quite adolescent. For a ferret, that's really old. I've done a lot of research and the short answer is that a ferret's life span is 6-10 years, but if you look closer the more common average age of a ferret is 4 - 7 years. They say a dog year is 7 per human. Well, for this lets just say that a ferret's year is more like 10 per human year. That put's my little old lady on par with a 90 year old great grandmother.
Unfortunately a body starts failing as it gets older. Pandora had her tail removed earlier this year due to a nasty tumor. She has another smaller one starting on her side. :( Shortly before her surgery someone stepped on her as she was buried in laundry and injured her leg; though it is mostly healed she's had a limp every since. She also has adrenal gland disease which is making her loose her hair. She has a colon prolapse and failing bladder control. She is still showing signs of enjoying life so I don't want to cut it short but I can also tell that she is slowing down a lot and in pain.
I bought new bag of kibble last week and told my husband that this would be the last one I'd buy. It takes 2-3 months to go through and if she wasn't gone naturally by then that we'd take her to the vet and have mercy on her. I'd begun to prepare my heart for saying goodbye.
Then on Friday she disappeared.
I'd been babysitting on a no-school day and was going back and forth between attending the kids and getting stuff done around the house that I didn't even realize that I'd last seen her in the morning. My husband brought it to my attention when he got home from work at 11:30 pm. I spent the next two hours tearing apart the house, assuming that my daughter had stuck her in a cupboard somewhere. (It wouldn't be the first time.) I couldn't find her anywhere. Then I looked outside. Nothing.
There had been a storm the day before and everything was wet. I pulled in my plants from the porch as the next day was supposed to be even worse. It was predicted to be the worst storm in 30 years. In denial I sat on the couch thinking that I was overreacting and that she must come out of hiding and come on her nightly sweep of of the house after the kids were off to bed. She didn't. Finally at 4 a.m. I fell asleep exhausted.
The next several days were miserable. I cried hard, and often. It turned out the storm wasn't nearly as bad as they said it would be but it still was really unpleasant. I kept looking for her but the rain was too hard, and it was cold. Wherever she was she'd be buried and wouldn't come out in this mess. Around my apartment building is a lot of ivy. Next to us on one side is a big water tower, where the ivy is overgrown. On another side is a park, with its vegetation, and on another side is some woods. There was no way I was going to find her in all that, but I owed it to her to try. And I kept trying. At least 6 times a day I went down the dirt stairs towards the park and over to the woods, then back. I figured after Saturday night she was dead, but a neighbor said he saw her on Sunday. So then I put food out. The snails got it but it didn't' seems that anyone else did.
By Wednesday I was about done with hope again. I was thinking of what to do with her stuff and decided that I was going to call her vet and donate her cage and new bag of food to give to someone in need. I was thinking of this as I was coming in from the car after picking up Anna from preschool. I opened up the stairwell door and out limped Pandora!
I dropped the books I was carrying and swept her up in my arms and started bawling. I got her upstairs as fast as I could and gave her food immediately. Her chewing didn't sound right (she was so weak) so I grabbed her food, purred some, added her vitamin oil and water and made a "soup" which she gobbled up. I watched her; she couldn't walk well - she kept falling over. Her back feet were swollen badly and blistered and she was SO thin! I cried just watching her. She must have been in so much pain and so scared. After she ate she cuddled up in her hammock and had a nice peaceful, safe, and warm nap.
I wont show you the other pictures I took as the are really unpleasant to see :(
Its been two days now. She is regaining energy. I'm waking her often (about 3 hours) to eat more soup, making up for lost time. Ferrets don't over eat, but they do have a high metabolism so they usually eat small frequent meals. I'm just making sure she has them more regularly than usual as her little body badly needs the nutrients. Her feet swelling has gone down and she is walking so much better. She gave the house a proper tour this afternoon, supervised of course. She is now gated off in the back of the house an only allowed out if I'm watching her. No more free roaming!
She is still a little old lady but oh, boy does she have a will to live! You can't keep a feisty princess down! I will cherish whatever time we have remaining. :)
I'll still be writing up my weekly what-I-did-this-week post, but this is where most of my concentration has been. Talk again soon!
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