Nova's Surgery

NOVA IS FINALLY HOME!!! And since she ate last week the vet said she could have three mice this week, and every five days for the next two months. Her attitude couldn't be better and she settled right in to her enclosure.

Watching a retic eat mice is rather ridiculous - think popcorn chicken. :D

Is SEAVS a regular hospital or just a surgery/trauma center? I only live an hour from there and in the event that my little snoot would need a major procedure, I'd like to know where to take him. I have a regular vet that is ok with herps (not a specialist, but works with reptile specialists in other states on a regular basis), and one that is a specialist but is three-four hours away that I could use if I had to.

SEAVS is an exotics specialist. They are not set up for emergency 24/7 intake. What's interesting is they don't do dogs and cats, just reptiles, birds, and small mammals that my snakes would likely consider food.

I would go to Blue Ridge Vets in Purcellville, VA for after-hours herp emergencies.

http://seavs.com/

Glad to hear about this whole success story! Kudos to the exotic vets and their abilities. Was there anything else besides her attitude and swelling of the pre vent region that clued you in to something being wrong with her? Congrats btw. :cool:

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Originally Posted by Albert Clark

Glad to hear about this whole success story! Kudos to the exotic vets and their abilities. Was there anything else besides her attitude and swelling of the pre vent region that clued you in to something being wrong with her? Congrats btw. :cool:

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The only thing that stands out is that she wasn't as active as my other retics, probably because it hurt to move. She wasn't "pet rock" inactive though, she just used her hide a lot more than the others, which I figured was her shy/stand-offish baby snake personality.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

NOVA IS FINALLY HOME!!! And since she ate last week the vet said she could have three mice this week, and every five days for the next two months. Her attitude couldn't be better and she settled right in to her enclosure.

Watching a retic eat mice is rather ridiculous - think popcorn chicken. :D

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glad to hear that Nova getting better. hope she'll get to full strength soon. :)

also i've always wondered how big snakes like Retics and big Blood Pythons coil and eat tiny prey. lol the image makes me giggle.

So glad to hear about Nova's happy ending! I'd love to see pics... especially of a retic eating mice, LOL!

Final update - Nova had a last checkup today and her sonogram looked great. No leakage or anything from the colon, and she is passing urates and feces regularly. We started feeding her on small rats last week, she can have two mediums this weekend, larges next weekend, and then back to XL rats or young rabbits by the end of this month.

Unfortunately there's a sad update to this story. Last week Nova started having issues with getting backed up/unable to pass feces. We took her to SEAVS and they got her cleaned out, but over the few days they had her for observation they noted issues with her back third becoming paralyzed, with a loss of muscle control in her tail, she could not close her vent, etc. We gave her a few more days to see if things would improve, but she then showed increasing signs of pain in her body just before the paralysis point.

They theorize that there may have been some nerve damage due to the surgery, and her nerves may have been torn or stretched away from the spine when they had to do the intestine resection. While the problem wasn't evident immediately post-op, it became an issue as she grew longer and thicker.

So, we made the tough decision to have her euthanized.

Since her particular case was included in the recently released edition of Mader’s Reptile and Amphibian Medicine and Surgery, Dr. Stahl will be doing a necropsy on her as a follow-up, in case he finds anything useful to include in a future release of the book.

So sorry to hear about, such a a shame

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