2021 0.1 Candoia paulsoni, Solomon Island ground boa, white phase - Inej

[Bogertophis]

Oh, I'm so sorry- we appreciate the update, but I truly hope you have a good outcome with her- that looks pretty serious from here. Up to now you've been doing so well with her, & she's what, only about 3 years old now?

[Starscream]

Yeah, I'm pretty worried. Trying not to think worst case since there's nothing to be done until the vet appointment. She's definitely not comfortable, but she's responsive to stimuli and taking sips of water.

She's 3, yeah. There's no external injury from what I can tell, and her belly looks normal so not skin-related.

[Starscream]

The vet appointment was yesterday. She doesn't have internal parasites, so that's good. He said it felt like a 'hard bony mass', and he couldn't get any fluid off of it, so they're doing an x-ray tomorrow as they couldn't on Saturday. She's being held there until then. Right now we're thinking it might be a piece of substrate that got stuck in her throat and she couldn't manage to get down. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

No one's said it with as many words to me, but I know that means surgery if it is a piece of substrate. I've set up her enclosure like she'll be in quarantine again, away from the other animals. He was concerned it would move down while she was with them, but considering its' been in the same spot for at least a week, maybe more, it's not going anywhere without help.

She was very, VERY feisty at the appointment and wanted very much to be left alone, which is obviously not something we could do. She nailed me once and tried several times with the vet until he could grab her by the head, and she nailed herself in the side as well, the poor thing. She's very confused and just wants to be left alone, and I can't blame her. Baby girl that thing's gotta go, and it's gonna suck before it gets better unfortunately.

[Bogertophis]

Thanks for the update- I'm keeping your sweet noodle in my thoughts & sending the very best wishes for a successful recovery from whatever this turns out to be.

[Starscream]

Been a lot of ups and downs since my last update. We're not out of the woods yet, but I'm hopeful that she'll be able to live a full and happy life.

Last Monday she was x-rayed, and the results of that showed a spinal abnormality. I do not have a picture of the x-ray, but I did see it. The knot itself on the xray looked like a bomb went off in her spine -- there is nothing there. It's wild to me that she's able to move the back part of her body at all, and yet she does. The vet and I then decided to scope her to see if we could see anything that was obstructing her throat, so Friday she was sedated and scoped with a tiny fiber optic camera. The vet told me that there's scar tissue in that location, but she should still be able to swallow just fine. We're going to take it slow and easy with pinkie mice once she's recovered from her visit.

I picked her up Friday, and the poor thing was having a not-so-fun time recovering from sedation. Up until yesterday she didn't seem to realize she could move her lower half, so I had started mentally preparing for the worst. On Saturday she had managed to get herself upside down and was clearly very distressed, so I very, very carefully flipped her over so she wasn't flailing trying to right herself anymore. On Monday, she still hadn't recovered functionality and was starting to dry out, so I again moved her so she had better access to her water bowl.

Yesterday I went to do a mite treatment (being careful, I don't want to bring anything home with me) and was running my fingers down her sides, which seemed to remind her that the rest of her body exists. She was able to flex pretty much all of her body behind the knot. I have no idea how she's able to do that considering there aren't any bones connecting the two sides, according to the x-ray, but clearly the spinal cord wasn't damaged enough to impede movement, somehow.

She's spent nearly all her time since coming out of sedation trying to fix her jaw, as it's not closing entirely correctly. The scope must've knocked something out of place, I'm hoping she'll be able to fix it herself. With how long it took her to recover from sedation, it may still be affecting how she's reacting to her jaw. Considering how tiny and delicate she is, I don't know if the vet would be able to do anything to help.

Right now the leading theory on what happened to cause this: I added a wooden bridge with a flexible but heavy metal 'joint' for her to climb on, as I recalled that my ball python enjoyed at when she was about the same size. Inej is one thousand times more delicate than a baby ball python will ever be, so she likely got stuck under it and was able to pull herself out, but not before she damaged her spine. It's the only thing different that I added to her enclosure semi-recently, and the fact that it took this long for something to happen is in itself a miracle. As she spends a lot of time in the same spot over the course of several days, and was occasionally moving around afterwards, it didn't occur to me that anything was wrong until she refused food.

Even if I'd caught it sooner, I don't know if her prognosis would be better. It may even have healed as nicely as it did because it took me so long to notice and I wasn't handling her to cause further stress on her spine. At this point, it is up to her on whether or not she chooses to eat. I'm really hoping she'll pull through, but there is still a chance that she won't.

[Homebody]

Hang in there. We're pulling for you.

[Bogertophis]

Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes indeed, we're all pulling for her. Thanks for the detailed update.

[Starscream]

Every time I've checked on her today, she's had her mouth closed, so she may have just figured that one out, thank goodness. One less thing to worry about. Here's some pictures as I just realized I hadn't provided any in any of my updates.

(Before vet visit)



Coming out of sedation from Friday.


Today.


Getting through it one day at a time. Because she was drying out, I thought her comfort and humidity was more important than sterility. As long as she's comfortable, I'll keep doing that.

[Bogertophis]

Such a pretty little snake- I sure hope she gets thru this okay.

[Starscream]

She passed away today. I'm not really in a place to discuss it right now, but I will be back at a later date to disclose what happened. Thank you all for your thoughts and support during this.