Saving William Wallace, my poor VERY septic ball python!

[SepticWallace]

Hi everyone,

I have recently come into possession of a very badly neglected ball python. His name is Wallace, first name William, for reasons you're sure to understand soon. I was told he is about 5 years old but I don't know for sure. He was obviously neglected for a LONG time and kept in terrible conditions because when I got him he had spots of red and had little patches of skin that appeared infected. He was also very very skinny, listless and wasn't eating. I tried for a while to get him to eat but he wouldn't take it. After a couple months of trying to just get him to eat and keeping him in a clean cage with proper temp and humidity his condition slowly got worse but I did finally get him to eat. Soon after that he shed his skin so I assumed that the reason he wasn't eating was cause he was getting ready to shed. Anyway, when he shed his skin, a BIG patch of skin on his tail came off with the old skin, exposing parts that should never be exposed. It looked like someone had taken a potato peeler and shaved part of his skin off. It was bloody and gross and just hanging off. I cut that dead and disgusting flap off from what little it had left attached so it didn't tear further, attempted to clean it the best I could with some saline and clean water and immediately called a highly reviewed exotic pet hospital in my area (I probably should have done this much sooner but alas, I am not a python expert so I didn't ...that part is my fault). So, I took him in and she basically told me that his prognosis was guarded at best and that it was most likely going to cost me a lot to save him, and thought that it was unlikely he would survive but if I was willing to shell out the cash she never gives up on reptiles and has seen some bounce back from pretty terrible things.

I decided it was my duty to revive him to health and bit the bullet. I shelled out 721 bucks then and there for three days of hospitalization, fluid w/ vitamin B therapy, a blood culture, a chem panel, analgesic (anti-pain) injections, amikacin (antibiotic) injections, ceftazidime (antibiotic) injections, hydromorphone (anti-pain) injections, a fecal analysis, wound treatment and silvadene (antibiotic ointment for wound dressing). The official diagnosis is as follows:

- Sepsis, severe wasting (weight: 0.312 kg / 0.69 lbs!?!?! )
- Complete blood count: Anemia
- Plasma Chem: elevated potassium and other analytes suggestive of dehydration and possibly renal compromise

After three days of fluid therapy and antibiotic/anti-pain injections they said he was more active and was ready to come home with a plethora of instructions on how to soak him daily, clean his wounds, give him his injections, keep him in proper conditions and feed him. After a week or so the blood culture came back with a susceptible E.Coli bacteria so the vet recommended I take him off the amikacin and get a refill of ceftazidime, which I did. I've been doing all that stuff for about a month now (daily soaks, flushing wounds with saline, dressing with silvadene, injections every 3rd day, keeping cage very clean and changing papers every single day, refilling water, etc.) I also cleaned everything in his cage and removed anything that could possibly have had any chance of reinfection and took out all the normal stuff you'd find in a snake's cage to be replaced with a simple cardboard hide (so he doesn't scrape off more skin on the fake rock one) and a fake branch/tree thing, and have been replacing the newspapers/paper towels daily. I even give the little guy water from my Brita pitcher lol. It seems now that the redness has started to clear up and the bad patch of skin on his tail has started to heal (VERY slowly). He still has not pooped (so I haven't gotten the fecal analysis yet) but he has eaten twice (once a week after I brought him home from the vet and once tonight), since he came home. Also, when he came home, he literally drank as much water as a human. I filled his water dish up right before putting him in his cage and he drank 3/4 of it in a single sitting so he must have been very dehydrated also. I assumed that meant he was feeling better.

So anyway, the reason I'm posting here is he seems to have one last issue that I plan to call the vet about tomorrow but also wanted some opinions from others. On the side of his tail opposite the badly ulcerated side, he had a couple small patches of ulcerated skin which are scabbed over and starting to heal now, but it seems he's developed some pretty large blood filled blisters on that side. I remember reading a while ago when I was looking after him that sometimes a snake with septicemia will get these blisters and that you're not supposed to open them because the blood inside can spread the necrosis if it gets on the surrounding skin. Because of that I left them alone for a while but they got to the point that they looked like they would burst if he scraped them on anything so I decided to play snake vet (it was a weekend and the vet was closed, so it was the best I could do at the time) and drain them with one of the tiny syringes from his ceftazidime. I successfully withdrew about five syringes full (250ml total) of blood/fluid from under the skin and flattened the blisters without getting any blood at all on his surrounding skin and then covered the entire area with silvadene after soaking and flushing with saline per his usual regimen. He didn't seem to mind the procedure at all and I felt better because I knew it was cleaned/disinfected and they weren't going to tear open and rip off. The problem is, a couple days later they are full of blood again So that's why I'm calling the vet tomorrow (actually I may wait until Monday just to see if he poops over the weekend since then I can bring the fecal sample with me too but I'll decide after reading some of your responses) but I wanted to know what your thoughts are. I looked up some images of blister disease and I don't know if that's what this is but there are definitely some big giant blisters on him in a couple spots and I don't want to drain them anymore since I'm not a doctor and I have no idea if snakes produce more blood or if I will kill him by draining all his blood, lol.

Anyway so that's the long story, I'm still working with the vet (this little guy better appreciate it cause the bill is approaching $1k!) but I'm concerned about the blisters in the mean time and wanted to know what your thoughts are or if there's a way to safely drain them or if the skin needs to be cut off by the vet or something. Maybe he needs a skin graft? lol I don't know...but as you can probably tell by now this is why his name is Wallace. He is named after the warrior from Braveheart! The only difference is that Wallace died in the end and mine will hopefully survive! I know he has a long road ahead of him but it seems like he's moving forward, slowly.

Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone!