A death in the (ferret) family

Little Vivi has died. She came to me in May of this year. She was found wandering around outside. You might have read a post about her. She was the most sweet, delicate little thing I’ve seen in a long time.

When she came in, her belly was bruised from internal bleeding and the vet didn’t think she would make it two more days. But Vivi had spunk in her, and she recovered. A few weeks later, when I took a very much living Vivi back to him, the vet did an aspirate on her spleen and said she had lymphoma. Since then, Vivi has had good days and bad days. She would play a little, then curl up to sleep, but she especially loved sleeping in your arms.

She would have spells where she would get as white as a ghost, then she would perk up again. A few days ago, she had another of her spells, but this time she did not perk up. She died peacefully in her sleep, curled up with Princess and a new ferret named Scrappy. The necropsy showed that in addition to whatever blood disorder she had, she also had Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. That’s when the wall of the heart gets very thick and eventually it can’t move any blood. I believe that’s what killed her, even though her spleen did show signs of serious issues. She’d been on a high dose of prednisone to keep the lymphoma at bay (and it worked, too) but that might have played a part in her heart disease. Or maybe she had that when she came, who knows? We knew nothing about her, not even her age.

I am so glad I got some nice photos of her just last month when she was still feeling pretty good. I’d like to share them with you, so you can appreciate this little soul who is now whole and healthy and dancing in heaven.