We had to euthanize Yafe today. He would have been 9 years old next month.

We spent most of last night/this morning at the emergency vet and then much of today at our regular reptile vet. Yesterday, when I went to change Yafe's water and check temps (I was going to feed last night), he looked very off. Sunken and in a weird position. I thought he was gone. We got him into a container and to the emergency vet (the one who sees reptiles on a Sunday night in a 2 hour radius). He was like spaghetti. He was barely moving. A week ago he was out and hanging (literally) with/literally a friend of mine, seemingly fine.

When we got to the emergency vet late last night, he was slightly better, but not much. She felt he was stable and to have the reptile vet we know (who is amazing and spayed Solana recently) look at him first thing today. I thought he'd be gone by the time we got there.

The vet today was shocked. Long story short, he almost assuredly had cancer, and likely leukemia. They are running pathology and performing a necropsy to make sure it is nothing that can affect the other reptiles. They all seem totally fine, and it was likely cancer, but better safe than sorry.

The vet discussed the idea of running pathology and seeing if there were any treatment options, but his kidney's were failing and multiple blood samples showed there was little doubt he would not last long. We all decided he likely wouldn't even make it to see the pathology results if we chose to go that route.

We made the decision for him not to suffer and sent him over the rainbow bridge.

Yafe was incredibly special not only because he was an amazing snake, but also because we nursed him back to health as a yearling after he developed an RI during shipment (his package was lost).

He was about 100G then and was about easily 25X that size and about 7 feet when he passed today.

I am gutted. Totally devastated. The vet said there was nothing I could have done differently and anticipates no issues with pathology regarding the rest of the crew. However, I am in shock and feel he was taken too soon.

For those unfamiliar, this a link to his thread: https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ression-Thread

RIP buddy.