Orion came from a family that didn't have time to let him out or play with him at all. For virtually all of his 2.5 yrs of life, he had been cooped up in a cage & pretty much ignored. We have no idea how someone could not adore this little guy, he has the sweetest temperament.

The move to our house was extremely hard on Ri as he was not used to people paying so much attention to him & we had these strange, bouncy things inhabiting the room. Ri had no idea what another ferret looked like. He was absolutely terrified of them & hid under the dresser hissing whenever any of them bumbled by.

Despite what it sounds like, we did take the whole transition to our place as slow as possible. Orion was only exposed to one or two of our absolute gentlest ferrets & was frequently held on our laps while the others were out to play. Still, the stress of the move & all the attention provoked a Heliobactor infection causing him to stop eating anything other than Ferretone & fruit loops. Since that's just not a healthy diet for a ferret, he was immediately started on duck soup & taken to the vet.

For the first couple of weeks we "tried" to keep Orion in the isolation cage. The problem with that is there is only one clasp in the middle of the doorway of the small cage, which makes it easy for a thin fert to squeeze through the sides. After about 3 escapes involving a messied desk & an over turned fruit loop box, he was moved in with the other ferrets. He tolerated them well as long as they weren't out bouncing around. It took him a couple weeks of sitting under the dresser hissing or watching them from the safety of my lap to feel comfortable joining them.

After that little adjustment period, he had no problem what so ever with the kids. He & Sassy (another rescued fuzz) quickly became very tight friends when she arrived later that year. They would spend their entire playtime flirting with each other. I don't think I've ever seen two ferrets that were better friends..

Sadly, Sass was lost during a routine adrenal surgery. Our old man took it pretty hard, but with a lot of loving, he's come through ok.

He had his left adrenal removed a couple of weeks ago. He's sporting that lovely shaved belly and bald-headed look at the moment, but it doesn't seem to bother him one bit. His vet scared the crap out of me the day I took him in for surgery.. I'm understandably on pins and needles surgery day with what happened with Sass, so when I got a call that both adrenals had to come out, I freaked. Their vet is fantastic, so I just told him to do what he could, remove the left & as much of the right as possible. A couple hours later he phoned to tell me that it was just an enlarged blood vessel over the right gland, not a tumor. Whew!

So I brought the Bump (short for "Bump in the Bed") home the next day & put him in the same small cage I mentioned earlier. We've since learned we have to clip the bottom of the cage so he won't play Houdini, but he was so lonely and sad looking without his buddies, that three days later I decided it would be fine if he went back in the ferret room with them.

Nilla, who had her surgery two weeks prior to Ri, has been his hammock buddy as of late. I'm happy to report they're now both sprouting hair & are returning to their silly ferret selves.

We've kept Orion's pictures from when he first joined us & others from later on. While he may not look that different, I assure you there was a huge change in attitude, weight & overall health after the first couple of weeks.

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Posted - 10/01/2002

Orion has not been doing well. He's been jaundiced this past couple of weeks and we're hitting him with everything we've got just to keep him around. Thankfully, he's still hungry for treats and has been up to performing his usual duties of supervising litter box cleaning and doling out kisses.

I'm not sure what we're looking at time-wise with liver failure.. But I know he's had a good life with us. As long as there's plenty of quality for him, we'll keep fighting. Poor little monster.. :(

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Posted - 10/10/2002 : 9:16:11 PM

Fifteenth time's a charm, right? I keep starting this, but can't seem to finish it. But now that I'm at home, I don't care who sees the tears..

Orion is gone... I came home the night before last and he was looking pretty poorly. The fluids didn't do their normal job of perking him up like they usually do and he was pretty unimpressed with dinner (which is highly unusual for him). Geoff saw the tears running down my face and knew without even asking. We sat with Ri for a long time and told him how much we loved him & how much we would miss him.

I was told I was going to work, regardless of what I had to say on the subject. So, red eyes and all, I went. Ri slept for most of the morning in a carrier at my feet until it came time for our vet appointment. He woke up every so often to smile up at me and then would go back to sleep.

My other vet was shocked to see how yellow he really was.. We discussed a few options, but came to the conclusion that we were already on borrowed time. My biggest fear was to come home and see that he had chewed on himself again or had begun bleeding internally - I just couldn't put him through that..

He sipped ferretone and got scritches as he fell asleep. I miss him so, so much.. He was the bump in the bed, the real cause behind messy desks and the thing that startled you awake in the middle of the night by licking the back of your knees. We're lucky to have known him..

:(

I found it only fitting that it absolutely poured yesterday, and this morning when I went out to my car, the only cloud break was over the house, with the Orion constellation in plain view.

Megan, missing the lumpus bumpus..