It had been years since I had ferrets.. I must have walked by the pet store one too many times because I decided that I 'needed' to bring a ferret home.

Geoff & I went and fetched my supplies from Mom's house & then went fuzzy shopping. We began our search at the Everett Jones & Co. What greeted us there was a solo 18 month old chocolate female.

Even now, at 5.5 yrs of age, she's still one of those silly girls you can get all riled up and then, after about an hour or so, you'll find her zonked out wherever she finds most convenient. She's never bitten anyone, never had a litter box problem and is just of those perfect "first ferrets", the kind everyone needs.

Tonic got her name because I had a ferret named Pepsi when I was younger.. I was thinking about eventually getting another ferret and naming him/her Gin and sticking with the beverage theme. Little did I know that ferrets were so addicting and that there'd quickly be more than just a pair. :)

Tonic learned very quickly that good things to steal consisted of my wallet, checkbook and keys.. Expensive taste that little weasel has! We now keep the kids in their own room, so they don't have the luxury of stealing such items that often.

Anyhow, she seemed to be quite content as a single ferret. She had people to spoil her rotten and was out almost 24/7. But about a month later ferret math hit and I decided that she needed a buddy. And that's when Oz comes into the picture.

Tonic, like all the other ferrets, loves her Ferretone, any kind of cereal & anything sweet (like my pop, which has been dumped from my desk more than once). She is an excellent beggar and will even resort to sleeping next to you, looking cute, to get treats. Sneaky little weasel.

Tonic is very friendly and although she is the alpha weasel over all, she does all the "meet and greets" for new ferrets. She can be trusted with them all, from the very young to the older ones that just need a hammock buddy.

Tonic has always been a bit funny about her playtime. She'll play hard with the other weasels, then go back to the cage and climb in a hammock. Before she goes to sleep, she gives the hammock a loud scratching. This is my cue to go pick her up so she can sit on my lap for a while. I swear this has gotten to be a nightly routine. :)

She's still fluffy & cute as always.. Well, at least now she is. You may see a couple pictures of her in the business section with her belly shaved. This was due to an adrenal surgery a couple of years ago. She fuzzed up fairly quickly after her surgery & has been healthy ever since. I've kept her adrenal history below, just in case you're interested.

Adrenal History:

8/26/99 - Rats! I discovered Ton's vulva is very swollen.. Will send out emails & begin researching this pm.

8/27/99 - Talked to tons of people and began calling vets. Found one with fairly reasonable prices (as far as adrenal surgeries go). The vet wants to see Tonic and make sure my assessment is correct.

8/30/99 - Tonic goes in for an initial checkup. Her vulva is very swollen at this point. After 5 mins, Tonic is pronounced wiggly & cute. An ultrasound will be scheduled soon.

9/14/99 - Finally get scheduled for an ultrasound. Reveals a large left adrenal. Surgery scheduled for 9/20/99.

9/20/99 - Dropped a very active Tonic off at the vets today. She gave the receptionist tons of kisses, so I felt fine about leaving her. I got a call around 4 pm.. Ton's doing a-ok!

9/21/99 - Went to pick up the very active Tonic. Had to wait an hour before my bill was finally written up so I got to hold her for that time. After about 15 mins of wiggling, she curled up in my t-shirt and went to sleep. She's doing really well & the vet predicts a full recovery. The vet also said that it may take up to two months before the vulva swelling goes down. Ugh.. I hate being patient!

9/23/99 - Great news! The histopath came back and revealed an adrenal adenoma. For those of you that don't know, this is a benign tumor. Whoohoo!

9-28-99 - Ton moves back in with the group today. Her stitches have dissolved and she's been taking her play time with the group for several days now.

10/6/99 - Unless I'm totally tripping, the vulva has definitely gone down some!

10/9/99 - Still no new hair where Ton was shaved for surgery. But the vulva has definitely gone down more.

10/18/99 - And we have hair!! I haven't been watching her bald tummy too closely.. But today I noticed that there's definitely dark hair growing in! At this point, her vulva is at least half the size it was when she went in for surgery. Yeah!

10/29/99 - Still growing hair :) And the vulva has gone down even further.. It's almost completely back to normal.

12/1/99 - Her coat is uneven by only the tiniest bit now and her vulva is just slightly swollen at this point.

1/19/00 - Unfort, her vulva has not gone down any more.. And is perhaps beginning to swell again (eyeballing something is not the most precise way to measure). I'm going to just watch her for some time & then decide what route I want to take.

* * *

11/16/01      (Posting from the index page as I can't bear to write it out again..)

It is with many tears that I announce Tonic's passing..

She left us some time during the early hours of November, 15th.. I found her curled up in her favorite hammy, snuggled up with her best friend, Orion.

While I'm completely devastated by her death, I am glad this awful week is over at last for her...

I noticed that she was starting to look a little 'spacey' during her playtime last week.. Dookers was already going in for an adrenal work-up on Monday, so I called and arranged to have Tonic tag along and get her glucose tested. I was so sure we were looking at insulinoma; she appeared 'out of it', was nauseated, lethargic and had gone off her food..

During the weekend, she continued to decline.. I started forcing chicken gravy, giving her Pedialyte and giving a little Pepto (which she promptly spat back at me) to settle her stomach. Nothing worked... Sunday night she was feeling very poor.. Monday just couldn't come soon enough.

In to vet they go.. Dook is pronounced "just fine". Tonic, however, was not. Her glucose came back at 181, so we proceeded on to a CBC. They had to keep her at the vet's for a while so they could put her under to get enough blood.. The vet called later that day and told me to come get her as there was really nothing else they could do for her there.

So I brought her home & "carried on", as the vet suggested, and awaited her CBC results.. The next night, the vet called and spoke to Geoff about what was going on. She was severely anemic, WBC count was down extremely low and her crit was at 8% (normal is around 50%). He had only two thoughts: lymphoma or an aggressive adrenal tumor (on the right this time, her left came out in '99). She wasn't displaying any recognizable symptoms of adrenal, so my heart sunk when the word lymphoma was spoken...

The next morning I walked in to Tonic having 'fallen' into her hammock. She was sleeping on top of dear Orion face-first. I called the vet as soon as they opened and he prescribed a strong dose of Pred to see if we couldn't jumpstart her system enough to perform a bone marrow test. I rushed over to pick it up, ran home & dosed her (with Pred & Tinic) and then hoped & prayed all the way back to work (where I unfort *had* to be since we were supposedly releasing our website).

When I returned home in the evening, she had gotten even worse.. I mixed up her gravy & meds, gave her as much as she would take and then just held her... And cried over her. I told her to just go if she needed to and to be on the look-out for Sassy when she got there.

Her later feeding was more of the same.... There was nothing left.

I was determined to look for vets that were open late, so we could just end all this... But it was nearly 11pm, so hubby advised me to wait until the next morning.. I was nearly out of my mind with grief at that point, that poor, poor girl...

Anyway, I ended up waiting and the next morning she was gone.. I'm glad now that she got to go on her terms, in her hammy and with her very best friend.

Her remains will be cremated & placed in our ferret room, on our treat shelf... Right were they belong.

I'm still waiting on the necropsy results.. The vet asked if he could perform one, as we just weren't able to do much given how fast she crashed. I will post them as soon as I get word.

Miss Tonic: We love you, little one... And we will one day see you again.