Ferret Died
Well, today I took my five year old ferret to the vet as I thought he was coming down with Adrenal Disease due to a bit of balding, as well as very small appetite and not getting enough water. The vet didn't think it was adrenal disease, but suggested we kept up with the melatonin we had started giving him to treat/prevent it. I was a bit optimistic, as Onyx (my ferrets name), was a lot more active today than he had been for the past week.
Well, about an hour ago I was proven completely wrong and Onyx died. I noticed something was extremely wrong when I went to get him ready to take his daily dose of meds (which is usually around 5:30). We managed to get his pills into him, as well as some water, but noticed that he was making some odd noises and was having a bit of trouble breathing smoothly.
From there, I wrapped him up in a blanket and sat him on the table. He was blowing a lot of water/liquid through his nose (I assume as a side effect of the seizures he was having). After about 40 minutes, at 5:50pm, he had one last major seizure and then died.
I've had Onyx a tiny bit under 5 years, and he had just turned 5 years old on the 4th of this month. I got him when I was a Junior in High School while living in O'Fallon, Missouri. Honestly, buying Onyx was probably the greatest decision of my life, which can tell you a bit about how sucky it is. My only regret is not having bought him a friend to grow up with, but he was the last ferret in the store and had a thing for biting people (he made me bleed within two minutes of our first meeting).
Last year, he was diagnosed with insulnomia and we'd been treating that since then. He was an old guy, in ferret terms, so I'm not really surprised about his death and I'm actually surprised how long he lived since he was living with me. I'm a bit annoyed at myself that instead of contemplating the possibility that he may be getting ready to pass, I thought he was just beginning to suffer from another disease. If I had read more, I would have easily known that he was about to die and probably would have asked the doc to put him to sleep rather than let him die the way he did. I did do everything I could to comfort him, and held him for the last moments of his life.
I do plan to buy ferrets again, hopefully in 3-4 months. This time around, I'll be buying two. Hopefully at least one Albino like Onyx, which I will name after him. I learned a massive amount of ferrets from Onyx, some times just from research, other times the hard way. I should do a ton better this time around.
Rest in peace little buddy. Onyx, aka Weasel-bottom rat-face.
Putting this here mostly so there'll be a record of him that I can come back to later.
