Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. School starts this week, we have mandatory overtime at work, and Dan is in Fiji. These past few weeks have been very rough. Houdini is sick and the whole family is distraught over his future. He has an enlarged spleen and a tumor on the top of his spleen. Ferrets are prone to tumors. There are three main tumor diseases that are deadly to ferrets insulinoma, lymphoma, and adenoma. Lymphoma happens either as an adult or as a young ferret. Juvenile lymphoma is deadly, despite trials of chemotherapy and radiation. Houdini's vet is starting to feel that he indeed has juvenile lymphoma. At this point we are not 100% sure, so we're going to try to help him as much as possible first. Houdini is on a VERY high dose of Prednisone (a steroid) in hopes to aggressively attack the tumor, reduce the size of his spleen, and help him gain some weight. Houdini has been very lethargic and rapidly lost weight. He will return to the vet's office on Friday and we will determine if it is time for surgery. It is sounding like the vet is most likely going to operate since he is trying to bulk Houdini up and his spleen is so big it isn't likely to go down to a normal size. Unfortunately Houdini almost exactly fits the mold of a typical juvenile lymphoma ferret. We're trying not to give up hope but it has been challenging. Houdini is a very loving ferret who is always taking care of the others before himself. He's the only one who will ALWAYS give us kisses and loves to snorkel in the water dish. Our family will be so very different if we lose him but we know that only he can choose when it is time to part. We're trying to give him the best quality of time while we still have him since we may find out soon that he only has days or weeks to live. We ask for as many prayers as possible and lots of support during this challenging time. Our baby means so very much to us and we only want the best for him.