I had to change substrate and my snake made a break for it

Don't beat yourself up. You haven't failed at all. ACCIDENTS HAPPEN. If a kid skins his knees playing in the yard or falls and bumps his head you're not a failure. Accidents happen. Just follow the advice you receive from experienced keepers and your snake will be fine. You brought home a snake so you could enjoy your new pet, take a deep breath. You haven't stressed her out too much, but it sounds like you're stressing yourself out too much. She will be ok, it'll be taken care of in a few sheds, and you will still have MANY years left to enjoy your animal.
You did NOT fail. Failing would have been to see the injury and not care and do nothing about it. You're asking questions, looking for help and doing the right things. Keep asking questions, keep learning, studying and researching and you will be a successful owner if you apply what you're learning.
Good luck, and keep your chin up, you're doing just fine.

Thanks for all the reassurances everyone - I really needed them. I did stress out, perhaps because I have secretly been waiting for something to go horribly wrong ever since I brought her back. I am pretty sure she will be fine though after she (and I...) calms down.

Although I still feel bad that it happened, I'm glad that it occured so close to her shedding her old skin, since there are some perfectly formed scales underneath where the old skin peeled away.

Is the snake going into shed? That may cause the skin to lift a bit easier and cause the kinda pinkish hue you saw in your snake-- it's called "pink belly" and it's a lot more noticeable on BELs, albinos, and other light colored morphs.

Either way, I don't believe you've hurt your animal in really any way. From the picture it looks like, if anything, the forming shed was peeled up a bit prematurely from the tugging on her.

I just wanna say though; you're in NO WAY a bad owner!! Stuff happens, noodles will always try to go places they shouldn't lol, I'm glad you caught the snake and pulled them out instead of letting them fall behind your tank setup and/or get lost. And in regards to the whole allowing your ball time to acclimate and your fear of having disrupted that... I mean yeah, you probably did freak your snake out pretty good. But theres no guarantee that the snake will stay freaked out towards you, and even if they are a bit shy it's nothing that appropriate and well timed handling can't fix :) Dont be so hard on yourself. I can tell you already really really care a lot about your noodle (by this and previous threads) and that already makes you a great snake mom!

Everyone makes mistakes at end of the day that's just something that we can't help but we can learn from our mistakes, your not a bad snake owner at all the fact your seeking help for the health of your snake proves that. I did months and months of research before getting mine and still made a silly mistake after all the research I did but I've learnt from that, I've got a wooden vivarium with a glass front and made the mistake of securing his plants to the sides by using duct/electrical tape it worked great for weaks on end and even replacing the tape every 4 to 6 days but unfortunately he was climbing about one night and the plant and tape had peeled off from the weight of him climbing about I woke up one morning about 3am to use the toilet so thought I'd have a sneak peak at him and his temps and humidity to find him stuck to the tape and plant where he'd try climbing over and when I mean stuck I mean STUCK his skin was so steched out it looked like it couldnt of been possible I had to gently cut away the stem and as much tape of as possible and remove the rest with a ear bud/ cotton stick dipped in olive oil safe to say I will never ever use tape again he had some slight damage to his scales but made a full recovery moral of the story doesn't how much you care for your snake or any animal mistakes happen it's in our nature unfortunately.

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Good news update! I went out and left her in her rub in the dark for about an hour or two - I came back and she'd trashed the place, pooped, and water was quite literally everywhere. But she came out in an absolutely perfect shed, smooth as anything.

I now feel slightly redeemed. :please:

Thanks again so much everyone who helped out, you definitely made me feel better when I was in a panic. Great advice and blown away by the awesomness of this community, as always. :sunny:

Awesome!! :gj:

Congratulations on the perfect shed and happy keeping for the future

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glad to hear it! I've seen small tears pre shed, and it all "comes out in the wash". glad you didn't lose a scale!