Okay I just bought my baby ball python about a week ago and, I'm probably just freaking myself out here, but I don't know what to do. The last couple of days I've noticed that he seems to be yawning a lot and has a little extra skin under his chin. I've read that a swollen chin and excessive yawning can be signs of an RI, but I see no bubbles or discharge coming out of his mouth or anywhere else and when I hold him up to my ear I don't hear any wheezing. And the few times that I have taken him out of his cage he is very active and constantly holding on to my hand and flicking his tongue about. And he's about to shed so I'm not sure if thats what that extra skin flap is or what. And I couldn't really say if his eating patterns have changed because he hasn't eaten yet.. but I've read that balls won't eat when they're shedding and that it can take up to two weeks before they feel comfortable enough to eat, and the guy at the reptile shop said he'd just eaten a fuzzy rat four days before. Right now I have an UTH that is not yet hooked up to a thermostat (waiting for it to be shipped) but I constantly put my hand on it to make sure that it isn't too hot, and he doesn't burrow into the substrate. He actually seems to spend most of his time on top of his hide log. The temps stay at a steady 80-90 degrees (at the moment I only have a 5.5 gallon tank so there isn't much room to create a temp gradient), and right now I'm keeping the humidity at about 55 to help the shedding, but I'm in Colorado and it's really dry here so I wouldn't think that excess humidity would be the problem... I don't know what else you would need to know.. There is some sort of wood substrate in there right now, it's what came in the cage when I bought it I believe it might be aspen?

I've been wanting a snake all of my life and now that I've finally gotten him I might be being overly paranoid and overprotective... but does anyone have any thoughts? Or tips that might tell me whether he really is sick or not?

And on a side note I just bought him a 20 gallon terrarium that I"m going to be setting up in the next week or so, and I'm getting conflicting information on different sites about how to place the heating elements. I've read that you should never have the basking light and the UTH on the same side of the tank because it can cause problems with excessive heat, but then I've also read that you SHOULD put them both on the same side or there won't be a gradient. Which is the right way?