Lupi details & prayer poem

Okay, so everyone knows that Lupi had surgery today and that he's home and he's awake. As I am typing this, Adrian is feeding a small portion of gravy to Lupi so that he has food in him, but not enough to cause pain. We'll feed him another small portion in a little while. Tomorrow, after the "all-clear" from the vet, we'll put his dry food in the playpen just in case he wants it. He'll continue to get small portions of gravy for the next few days.

Anyway. What happened was....

Lupi has been adrenal for some time, he's been on the melatonin implants for the adrenal. He's been on saw palmetto for his prostate. And we started him yesterday on Vetasyl/Pumpkin. And boy, that's when the s**t hit the fan! We don't think the Vetasyl had any cause in what's happened to him, but it was a coincidence that it happened right after the dose.

Anyway. Lupi had a couple of thin short poopies throughout the day on Wednesday. He's been "piddling" for weeks, but we just didn't think anything of it (stupid us). Last night, around 9 pm, Adrian noticed Lupi was grunting/squeaking in pain when going potty...and nothing was coming out of him (except the noises). So we put him in the dining room, gave him a good dose of Vetasyl/pumpkin thinking we could help push whatever it was out. Little did we know, but he wasn't straining to poop, he was straining to pee. Anyway, his last poopie/pee was at 11 pm. He was constantly running around trying to get something to come out, and after almost 4 hours of fretting and hoping and praying that he could last until morning, I felt his stomach and it was hardening. So, I called up the emergency clinic and told them we were on our way. Our emergency clinic doesn't know much about ferrets, but they knew enough to do some checks, xrays, pokes, prods, and draining.

After more than 2 hours at the emergency clinic (4:30 am) we finally got about 4 cc of urine drained from his bladder along with a lot of poop that he finally pushed out and a great deal of pus from his bladder as well. There was also some blood considering the needle that was poked into his bladder to drain the urine. He was POOPED literally and figuratively. Can you imagine hours of straining to push out poo and pee...oh wait, just imagine having a baby...haha...that's a lot of straining. Anyway, he was wiped out and didn't care much about the vet sticking needles into him and he just lay in my arms while they gave him sub-q fluids. They wanted to give him enough to keep him hydrated, but not enough to fill up his bladder again.

Anyway. The vet was awesome, they did 2 xrays and only charged us for one, as well as not charging us for an antibiotic and some other small things. They saved us $100. They were awesome.

We brought Lupi home and Adrian and I hunkered down and took a 2 hour power nap so we could get up bright and early to take Lupi to our regular vet (who is ferret knowledgeable). The vet looked at the previous xrays and urine samples and all the other vet's notes. Our regular vet then did an ultrasound and saw what looked like a stone in the bladder. He also saw what looked like a cyst in the prostate. The prostate was about 5 times it's normal size, no wonder he couldn't urinate!!!

Now, remember, Lupi is a little over 7 years old and we didn't want to put him through surgery. But at this point, it was either surgery or permanent sleep. So we bit the bullet, told Lupi all about the bridge and that if he needed to leave us, that we would be alright. We told him we loved him and that we hoped to be taking him home that night with us. Gave him kisses and signed him over for surgery.

Well, through an entire day of worry and stress and exhaustion, we finally made it to 5 pm when we went to pick Lupi up. Horray, he made it through surgery splendidly!!! I'm so proud of my old man. Good news all around! The vet took the enlarged left adrenal gland, the enlarged spleen with either a ruptured tumor on it or a, um, okay I forgot the or part of that...but it's not really important. He also got the "stone" out of the bladder which turned out to be a blood clot mixed with um, those crystal thingies you find in stones...not too good with the terminology...guess it would help if I wasn't so dang tired. Anyway, he squeezed out the prostate which was loaded with a pus/infection...so that helped big time in getting rid of the infection...and he squeezed out the urine in his bladder...everything passed through smoothly, nothing causing anymore blocking and straining. He also made a small incision in the bladder just to take a peek inside to make sure there wasn't any other unknown dangers in there. We'll know in 2 weeks the lab results. The spleen and adrenal gland were sent off to them.

So, Lupi has been hollowed out for the most part. I'm sure, even though he's groggy and has been cut open and ripped apart, he sure feels better now that he can potty without pain. Maybe he'll finally stop grinding his teeth now. By the way, the estimate for the surgery was between $400 and $700, but guess what we paid....go on, guess....a whopping $337!!! Holy cow, I was so thrilled and so shocked I had to ask "are you serious?" to the lady at the counter. We did sign up for CareCredit today and used that since our vet accepts it...we'll easily be able to pay that off in less than a year now...especially at zero interest.

Lupi, 7 years old and a good strong little guy, was our very first ferret, he is our oldest ferret, and he is probably our most special ferret. We hope to see a couple more years with him before he has to leave us. And on that note, I wrote a poem today. It's been YEARS since i wrote anything, and Lupi inspired me today. So...

One More Day
A Prayer for Lupi
by: Ann Haager

It's only a moment
This life we have on Earth is only a moment in your time.
Let him stay a little longer, there's so much more for him in life.
Things he hasn't done, words not ready to be said,
Places he wants to go and fun times to be had.

It's only a moment
To enjoy love's gift, the treasure of life.
To forget sorrow and worry, the pain and the strife.
Let him have a few more days, weeks or even years,
To teach us how love can cast away all fear.

Let him truly know bliss, pleasure, passion and fun.
For maybe he'll have his best days yet to come.
For it's eternal with you and everlasting, it's true.
But give us this time, for only a moment, he's mine.

Dooks & Dances