George's Memorial Page
George came to us as a rescue. He must've led a hard life because he also came to us as a nipper. I'll never forget the first time I met him. He was standing in a bare galvanized cage...no food, no water, no litter box, no bedding. He was big and beautiful and a whole stinky hob! We took him out and you could tell he was scared. Jason held him and he proceeded to lick my hand. "Aw, how cute." I remember thinking. That was until he took a chunk out of my palm. But ya know what? He came home with us that night. There was no way I was going to leave him behind.
He was our first whole hob. I'll never forget what he taught me there!! Stinky is an understatement. But with all that stink came a whole lotta love. We had George neutered and stinkiness went away and the sliming of objects also went away. He became loveable, but still a nipper....especially of toes!
He was a great lover of ferretone and would always look at us with pleading eyes for just one more drop of the golden liquid.
Around Thanksgiving of 2003 we noticed that George had some small lumps growing on his skin. They weren't squishy, but hard like marbles. I didn't have a good feeling about it from the beginning. I'd never felt anything like that on a ferret. A day or so later the lumps grew and there were more of them! We were able to get him into the vet shortly after that. She thought that the lumps could be mast cell tumors. He also was having trouble pooping at this time. These lumps were red and angry looking. But she did think that we should do a biopsy just to be on the safe side. So we had one done, and they had a little difficulty stopping the bleeding, but otherwise he pulled through just fine. Doc put him on pred, benedryl, carafate and cimetidine. The cimetidine became a real battle to get George to take. We fought with him so much that we had to put it in turkey babyfood, and even then it was a fight. After a few days of being on the benedryl and pred the lumps went down in size and the redness went out of them and he was pooping again. We thought it was working wonderfully. We ran out of pred, and it took about a day for us to get over to the vet's to get the medicine. Within that time George had grown more lumps. :(
By Jan. 3, 2004, he couldn't poop much, and what did come out was messy. He also couldn't pee and was starting to cry a bit while straining. We felt his abdomen and felt a swollen full bladder, and other nodules in his abdomen and on other parts of his body. Once again I didn't have a good feeling. So on Jan. 6th we took him into the vet again. He tried to potty in the carrier at least six times and was unable to go, but now he was crying more loudly while trying to go. Doc came in and palpated his abdomen and noted the full bladder and other nodules. She felt that his bladder was blocked and that his lymphnodes in his back were so swollen that they were pressing on his swollen bladder, which also left no room for his intestines to pass stool. She felt we were dealing with something more serious than just mast cell tumors and that prognosis wasn't good. She said that she could drain his bladder and get him through maybe 18 hours, but it would just fill up again. She felt that if we did get him through the 18 hours that we would have to go further and do chemotherapy. But even with chemo, prognosis wasn't good. So, we made the hard decision of letting him go. He was anesthetized, his bladder drained to provide some comfort and handed back to me. He was awake, but groggy and I know he could hear me tell him about the Rainbow Bridge, and how much we'd miss him, and how much we loved him. We were able to hold him and say our goodbyes for at least 10 minutes. Doc took him into the back, gave him some gas, and a heartjab. And our baby was brought back to us for one last goodbye. I will remember that he still had his dignity and fight left in him. I didn't have to see him as only a shell of what he used to be. He was my strong ferret. My big boy. We received a phone call the following day from the receptionist telling us that we made the correct decision, as George's biopsy had come back as lymphosarcoma. A few days later we received his ashes in a beautiful handcarved wooden box.
The funny thing about George was that he stopped nipping all together in the last couple months of his life. I think he realized that he wasn't going to recover and it was his way of saying "hey Mom, thanks for such a great 2 years."
I miss him. I look at the cage and still expect to see a speckled nose peeking out from a blankie on the bottom level of the cage. Or those pleading eyes looking for some ferretone. The pain is still in my heart, but I know in time it will be replaced by the memories of how we loved George and how he loved us.
So many folks wrote and expressed sympathy for the loss of George. Thank you all. It means so much to our family.
