I had a scary incident last night and wanted some thoughts: I believe it's isolated but wanted some opinions.

I went into the snake room last night for the nightly rounds and when I got to the two tubs where my Argentine female and albino Colombian are housed (separately) I heard a loud bop from DiOra's tub (albino). She sometimes strikes the side of her tub but it's usually when she knows it's feeding time (which was not last night) and she can smell the rats so it was out of character for her (I have a towel over her tub so maybe she saw my shadow).

When I peeked in on her (by raising the towel up) she was in total defensive mode: jaws wide open, hissing, body tense and spread out against the sides of the tub, middle of her body raised off the floor. She has NEVER acted this way and is one of the nicest boas I have so this was very out of character for her. I was able to look into her mouth and noticed she had a piece of aspen stuck on the roof of her mouth: me and my bf decided we should remove this.

Well, she was so defensive (I don't like the term "aggressive" since it's simply not in her nature) that we could barley handle her: she was striking wildly everywhere and was very vocal. I noticed that the aspen wasn't in her mouth anymore (I'm assuming it shot out when she was hissing/striking/acting crazy) so we left her be without opening her mouth up. She continued to hiss for minutes after putting her away with a towel over her.

After giving her a day of no contact I just took her out about an hour or so ago for a overall wellness check and she is back to her wonderful, sweet, well-mannered self. It's like last night never happened with her. So here's my question:

~ Could this piece of aspen what was in her mouth case her to act this way out of paint/discomfort?
~ She ate almost two full weeks ago and I took her out last on the 21st for a tub clean. She was totally normal then so I believe this aspen got stuck in her mouth very recently: can she have drunk up a soggy piece of aspen from her water bowl? I don't know of any other way this got in her mouth and this is the only thing I can think of.
~ I don't believe she is ill in any way and I believe this is an isolated incident (if she has another one of these "fits" she's going to the vet right away: after loosing one of my corns last month to an isolated incident I'm not taking any chances) but could she have simply been spooked/caught off guard or is there a health problem I should keep an eye out for?
~ Tomorrow is her feeding day: I plan to feed her but is there any reason I should not? I changed her aspen out to paper towel substrate so she can't ingest any more aspen.

This really scared me: not because I was worried about getting bit or that her hissing scared me but I was scared FOR her. This was so out of character and it worried/worries me that something was/is going on with her. I'm hoping this was just an odd incident: I like to think I can "read" my snakes pretty well so I hope she stays her sweet self! Any input on this (boa related or otherwise) is appreciated.

Pic taken August 21st (noticed nothing odd):



Taken tonight (again, looking fine exterior-wise), not even a hiss or bluff from her: