I feel like such an idiot. I took the heating pad for granted and assumed everything would be fine. It's been running since August with no problems until last night. How stupid of me to not run it with a thermostat of some kind.

It was 6am, I was heading to bed after a late night of my usual online stuff. I had my glass of water, my radio on, everything. I was just about to lay down when I looked into Pelota's cage and seen the temperatures were at 124 warm side and 97 cool side. I started frantically yanking the bricks off of the top of the cage and removed some stuff to get Pelota out and check on her. Luckily she was still alive and not fried or anything. I placed her in her water to drop her core temperature down. She felt very warm and soft. Not as tense as she usually is when I pick her up. After that, I let her sit in her water bowl for a while as I turned off the heat pad and put a fan facing the cage bottom to cool the temperatures down. It took about 20 minutes to get the temperatures down to room temperature. Then I put everything back, and placed the heat pad on low(it was on medium for the winter weather change) and kept an eye on things. I didn't get much sleep. Kept bobbing my head up to see the temp in the cage. Now the temperatures on the warm side only get to 85 with the heat pad on low. I think the heat pad is just on its dying days. Doesn't matter..I'm planning on getting a new one when I get a rubbermaid cage for Pelota this month.

Now tonight, I had Pelota out for a bit to see how she is, and she seems to be her usual self. The only difference is she doesn't coil tightly around my wrist like she would usually do. Other than that she seems fine. If you were in my place, with no spare money to get a thermostat, or bring her in for a vet visit, what would you do? Should I just keep a close close eye on things for a while, and get that thermostat as soon as I can? Are there any signs of health problems I should look out for? I feel so bad that I let the heat pad get to such temperatures. I could kick myself for not trying to get a thermostat sooner. :cry: