 | mobile - desktop |
|
| mobile - desktop |
|
 |
 Contact Sales! |
News & Events:
|
Posted by iZ's mom on December 11, 1999 at 13:43:06:
ok ~ here's the history on iZ + his illness(es) ... i'll try not to ramble on, but it's long anyway ...
mid Oct ~ iZ is a 5', 11 pound male ig, 3.5 years old ... about this time, he started acting "just weird" ... was *not* mating season behavior ... he acted like he was in pain (i saw the same behavior when he broke his tail last year) ... his poop starting looking more like rabbit pellets than ig-poop ... the larger scales on his head started looking very strange ~ had weird lesions, shed was very stuck, scales weren't hard + shiny any more, they looked like old leather ... took him to the vet ... (who btw, was not a reptile vet, but was very good with iZ and had saved his tail from being amputated ... Dr. C was the 7th vet we'd been to in 2.5 years + was by far the best we'd seen at that point) ...
i was concerned iZ was obstructed, Dr. C felt that was not a concern since he *was* still able to poop + didn't do x-rays ... put iZ on mineral oil and oral Baytril ... he had ALOT of salmonella in his feces ...
beginning of Nov. ~ iZ improved while on the Baytril + oil ... poop looked more normal, scales were clearing up ... was acting more like himself ... finished the Baytril and things got worse overnight ... scales have purple blotchy lesions and what looked like scabs on them ... refuses to eat ... started drinking MASSIVE quantities of water ... back to Dr. C. who doesn't think x-rays are necessary but sends me to a friend of his who is *supposedly* an iguana vet (just cuz she has one of her own) ...
Dr. C's friend is an out + out idiot and shouldn't even BE a vet, let alone claiming she knows about igs ... have never come so close to physically attacking someone in my life ... that's all i'll say about her ......
Nov 8 ~ back to Dr. C ... iZ is still refusing to eat, am tube feeding him baby food ... still drinking massive amounts of water ~ it's downright scary to see him drink ... he's lost 3 pounds + looks like hell ... Dr. C finally does x-rays + we discover iZ has an earring back, 2 small pieces of plastic and what looks like some cloth, stuck in his gut ... Dr. C is willing to do surgery *IF* i can't find anyone else, but he has no experience with ig-surgery ... so i begin my hunt for a REAL IG-VET ...
i find one who is 2 hours away at a clinic where dogs + cats are the "odd" pets and reptiles are the norm ~ *FINALLY*!!!!!
nov 11 ~ we meet Dr. M ~ he manages to do a blood draw in 10 seconds flat! we do more x-rays ... it is *not* cloth in him, he's stuffed to the brim with *water*! but the earring back + pieces of plastic *are* stuck ... iZ's kidneys are very swollen ... we are hoping it's due to the irritation of the plastic being stuck ... since it's a thrusday afternoon, we probably have to wait until monday for the results from the lab on the blood work ... surgery is tentatively scheduled for tues morning to remove the obstructions ...
nov 12 ~ iZ has greatly worsened during the night ~ he drinks constantly but is dangerously dehydrated ... he's down to 7 pounds and looks like a death camp lizard ... i call Dr. M who tells me to start doing sub-cutaneous fluid injections + bring him in monday morning 1st thing for surgery ... (if he lives thru the wkend)
nov 13 ~ sub-Q injections have to be the WORST thing i have ever done ~ iZ agrees and takes a huge chunk out of my arm ... we agree to go back to the feeding tube ~ i aspirate the water out of his stomach and replace it with pedialyte 3-4 times a day ...
nov 15 ~ monday ~ we leave at 5.30 to get to Dr. M's 1st thing ... he calls + gets the lab results + things look good ~ iZ is extremely dehydrated but the blood work shows no signs of kidney problems which is our biggest fear ...
surgery is two hours long ... Dr. M is amazed iZ lived thru it ... he opened iZ's stomach but the plastic had moved down to his cecum + so that was opened too ... iZ's bladder was huge and distended so he opened that + cleaned out a ton of gunky chunky stuff ... iZ's kidneys were also huge ~ they were pressing on the colon which is why the little bits of plastic + the earring back got stuck ... Dr. M does a biopsy on one of the kidneys ... we are still hoping against hope that the obstructions caused the kidney problems and not the other way around ...
nov 16 ~ iZ comes home from the hospital in the afternoon ... Dr. M feels that i can take better care of him at home, give him more attention than they can ... plus, he doesn't expect iZ to live ...
Nov 16-20 ~ iZ is incontinent the next 2 days ... i actually take that as a *good* sign that at least his bladder *can* empty out ... i give him warms baths every 4 hours and he pees everytime which amazes Dr. M ... am giving him 120cc of fluids everyday, some every 4 hours, to keep flushing his bladder + kidneys ... have mixed up a high-cal formula for him cuz he can't eat ... he gets Amphojel twice a day to lower his phosphorus ... gets an IM injection of Baytril everyday ... (it's ALOT easier than subQ fluids!) ... have redone his 'bed' so it's plastic mesh instead of just a board shelf ... seems to be ALOT easier on his sore tummy ... his back legs aren't working ...
nov 20 ~ he's hangin' in there! getting more alert ... i cut back to soaks + feedings to twice a day, the extra handling is stressing him moe than helping him at this point ...
Dr. M calls with the results of the kidney biopsy ... because of an undectected (+ therefore untreated) low-grade, prolonged bacterial infection, iZ has some kidney scarring/damage and he does have extremely severe kidney disease ... again, Dr. M gently tells me, he does NOT expect iZ to live ... he is blown away that iZ has made it this far ...
3 wks later ~ we're still hangin' in there and iZ seems to be improving on a daily basis! i tried adding baby food to his diet and it made him dangerously constipated, so we are gonna be on a liquid diet for some time yet ... 2 wks ago, his kidneys felt the size of tennis balls, they're down to ping pong ball size now, which gives me hope ... he is slowly re-gaining some of the massive amount of weight he's lost ... is very alert + seems content ... have redone his entire room ~ removed the climbing sticks and replaced them with wide ramps so he can move around ... (looks like a giant ferret room now) ... after weeks of dragging himself along with his arms, he actually took a *real* step last week and is steadily regaining strength + the use of his legs ... but he's still not allowed to climb ... he puts up with all the stuff i have to squirt in his mouth pretty good ... he even puts up with the daily shot ~ plus i've gotten pretty darn good at it ... (*sigh*) ...
when we finished the 1st 10 days of Baytril, he was off of it for 3 days and his scales that had been improving, got noticeably worse, so we're back on Baytril ~ in the middles of a 2 wk course ... also realized at that point that the new patch of weird looking scales on his back/neck, was actually a nasty BURN from his overnight stay at the hospital ... *heavy sigh* ... gently clean it everynight and put Silvadene on it and it is healing nicely tho it's awful to see pink skin on an ig ... hasn't this poor baby been thru enough???
so that's about where we are now ... i'm still very cautiously, quietly hopeful that he's gonna make it ... Dr. M is continually amazed that we've lasted this long, let alone that he IS improving ... iZ is still painfully thin ... the constipation scare we had last week added way too much stress to his already stressed out little body ... have increased his calorie intake to 4 times what it 'normally' would be ... he gets 4cc Amphojel twice a day, 5cc mineral oil once a day, the SHOT, formula and Inflayte twice a day (a *minimum* total of 70cc per day) ... gets a daily soak in the tub and gets Silvadene on his burn and A + D ointment on his spikes and other STUCK shed spots ... (am afraid he's gonna loose his spikes, but it's also kind of a non-issue right now) ... his incision is healing nicely ... legs continue to improve, color is better than i have EVER seen it ... the kidney's swelling is way down ... his attitude is pretty darn good, i don't get *too* many open mouth hisses any more + he's not snapping at me any more ... still think he understands i'm trying to help + that the formula + infalyte make his tummy full like food used to ... he even likes baths now! think it's cuz for a while there, it was the only time he could really move, when he was floating in the water ... he gets to come down to the livingroom now after his bath and hang out on his basking shelf for a while, i think he missed that, i know *I* did ... he snuggles with me before bedtime like he used to ...
and that's about it ... now, i'm off to crush up some centrum + some calcium to add to his formula ...
iZ's mom
