FINAL UPDATE: Poltergeist is doing much better! His face is almost fully normal and he has begun eating again. Unfortunately, this ordeal has made him much more timid and far less food aggressive, as he will only eat the rat if I leave it in his enclosure overnight. Nonetheless, I'm glad he's recovering and I will move him into his updated enclosure within a few weeks from now just to be sure he has no issues.
I do want to add that I found an issue with his heating mat, which was slowing or preventing his healing process. The heat mat surface was hot enough, as my heat gun indicated, but it was not, for some reason, putting out enough heat to make Poltergeist as active as he should have been. When I touched him, he seemed a bit cold (even though the mat was at 88 degrees F), so I replaced it with a ceramic heat emitter that heated the surface and the air. Almost immediately he began to be more active and started taking meals a couple days later. The heat mat simply did not produce a hot enough ambient temperature, even though he was formally eating and pooping fine. I'm getting rid of the mat and using the bulb from now on.
Here are pictures of his face almost normal:
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He'll probably get more "food aggressive" as time goes on & he feels better. When snakes don't eat for a while, they lose enthusiasm until they regain their energy from eating.
