Not sure where to put this, but my ball python passed away suddenly last Thursday. After a slow and forth with the vet and some wait, he went in for a necropsy yesterday. Vet called just now to inform me the gross necropsy yielded no obvious cause of death. Everything seemed heathly. She isn't sure any samples she took will be viable enough for any testing, but will be calling labs on Tuesday (December 26th) to see if they think it's worth pursuing. I'm at such a loss right now. His history didn't show too many signs of anything. We got him from a pet store in 2012 and about a month into having him he got a respiratory infection. We assumed it was the dust from the substrate, so we changed that, gave him the shots and he seemed totally fine with no recurrence. Only odd signs he's ever had were that he refused to eat anything except for mice and they had to be super warm or he'd either not eat them, or strike them and miss repeatedly. He refused to eat on numerous occasions, which I had read was typical of a ball python to be picky and not always eat, so we just rolled with it. He was not as big as we've seen most 5 year old bps to be either. He rarely shed completely even with water and humidity. Only had sheds come off after a good soak. Last bad shed he had we put him into the bath and it got weird. As soon as he hit the water he started flailing and rolling as if he was panicked and couldn't right himself. Once I yanked him out of the water he was fine. His eye cap on one eye was still on and we had to gently peel it off with no real resistance. Oddly, though, his eye still looked funny/cloudy-ish with the eye cap off. The night before he passed he seemed fine and was wandering around his cage. Next day, feeding day, I go to turn everyone's lights on and find he had passed just mere hours before (he was still limp, except for his lower 1/4.) I instantly blamed myself for not seeing that anything was wrong. I should have taken him the next day after he did that weird thing in the bath. I just assumed he was freaked out by the big tub of water he was just put in as he hadn't been in a bath in a while. Well, I did research on everything, then began panicking that he had ibd. He never stargazed, but always had a slight tremor when he would do the snake "look around" thing they do when they lift their heads. Which he only had the tremor when he'd look around, never with normal squiggling. I just assumed it was normal or a quirk. He never had mouth rot, no second ri, didn't corkscrew, no huge red flag of any kind. But I feel if I had put all of those tiny issues together I would have suspected something sooner and possibly saved him. My vet said visually he appeared healthy, even a good amount of muscle and fat considering he didn't always eat. Organs checked out, and no tumors or anything visible. Well, she also believes it was something like being septic or bacterial or something unseen that would require a test of some sort. But also she thinks if it was something like that that it would've still taken him too fast to be caught in time. I worry they won't be able to get anything off of the samples after over 10 days since death, but the snake was kept refrigerated, so there's potential hope. I guess my question is, has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone have any guesses as to what happened to him? If I dropped the ball on him somehow, I don't want to do this to any of my other babies. (Which, for the record, they all went in for a vet visit this Monday to be sure they all looked good. I will also get fecals for them all in the coming weeks.) I don't want this to be my fault, but how else can I exaplain a seemingly healthy snake dying after only 5-6 years of life? Any similar stories, or theories to his death, or even critiques are very much appreciated!!