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Posted by Esther on March 29, 2001 at 23:19:13:
Thanks for asking about her, Georgia. She gave me a total fright. I was out in the other room when I saw Angel Baby come out, come over to me, and then begin regurgitating this border from a sheet. It only came up a little at a time, and she would step on it with her foot and then wriggle her head in and out, side to side, to pull more out of her throat.
She had obviously eaten the whole border, gulped it down whole (probably thinking to herself, gee, this will break apart and get digested eventually, just like a long piece of kale). She seemed to want my help (otherwise she would have just stayed in the bedroom where she ate this) and some instinct told me not to "yank" it out of her mouth, so I held the end of it and let her slowly wriggle it out, inch by inch.
It was horrifying to watch. It was so long, and after a foot of it came out of her mouth (this is a continuous foot), she looked at the long border and I guess she knew how much more was inside of her and she got really scared and started to thrash a little. I carefully cut it about an inch from her mouth, and we started the slow process again, and I had to cut it two more times, making a total of one and a half feet of the border coming out.
The last time I cut the border, she gulped back down the remaining inch, and I put my shoes on, grabbed her carry case, and ran out the door hailing a taxi to the Vet ER. By the time we got to the ER, nobody believed that anything could be wrong with her because she was acting normally, but I knew that there was at least 2 1/2 feet of the sheet border, possibly SIX feet, and I wasn't taking any chances. Angel has more ways to get into trouble, and you have to take her seriously every time.
The vet had to sedate her, with a little breathing mask I guess, and perform an endoscomy (I am sure I spelled that wrong, sorry all you vet-techs out there). The vet told me that the proceedure would have them sticking a tube with a light and view scope down Angel's throat, ALL the way down, and try to pull the border out. However, with a "continuous linear foreign body" they said that the major risk was that the border could have gotten into her intestines and in those cases, the border would knot and tangle in her little entrails, a sure death-trap they said. So I had no choice but to go ahead with this proceedure, and FAST. They said that if this proceedure did not work, then they would have to operate on Angel and invade her shell, cut it open, and extract the linear foreign body from her intestines that way. When I heard of that, I nearly fainted, because I have never heard of an operation where the shell is opened be successful, despite the doctor's reassurances that she was extremely healthy going into these proceedures. I told them that I did not want to do shell invasion if at all possible, and to give the endoscomy (sp?) their best shot and to get to it immediately before the border made it to her intestine.
Several hours later, they came down from the OR with 37 inches of cotton border. So add that to the initial one and a half feet of this thing we pulled out at home and you have a very cottony tortoise. That is like a person eating an entire sheet, a WHOLE sheet that has not even been cut into little pieces. She recovered from the sedation and I got to take her home, after saying many thankful prayers. She was a little disoriented for the night, and REALLY slept soundly. She is alright now, ate vigorously today, and made her ususal poo. These guys are like toddlers. They get into everything, stick everything in their mouth, and scare their mommies to death.
