The trip to the vet turned out to be very surreal and slightly traumatic. Pan, the little ferret, had a massive allergic reaction to the distemper shot, which has never happened before. She threw up for an hour, scratched at her face in a highly disturbing manner, and just about went into shock. First the vet gave her epinephrine to stop the reaction, then benadryl, and then, when none of that helped, out came a shot of steriods. Poor Pan was not a happy camper. An hour later, she seemed to be coming out of it, and she's happily sleeping now. I have to give her benadryl every eight hours for the next three days. And we all know what a pleasant task it is to administer medicine to ferrets, especially ferrets who spend the afternoon puking and receiving shot after painful shot. Robin, the other ferret, seemed to enjoy the entire episode. Paul said Robin tried to climb into the fish tank in the waiting room. The vet felt really bad about the whole thing, and she gave me her cell phone number. She has two ferrets of her own, and she said these allergic reactions are so rare she's only ever seen it happen one other time. Trauma, trauma, trauma. Also, Pan is now old enough to be considered a "geriatric ferret," and despite all the trauma today, I continue to find the term "geriatric ferret" to be extremely amusing.
posted by Jen at 12:06 AM link/comments
