I had other more interesting pictures from this day but I thought SB deserved a day on my blog. He had surgery last winter and it's been a rough year for him, but he's starting to seem better.
He had a lump below an eye. After calling around I found a vet in Brooklyn that sees exotics so I packed him up in a little box with a hot hand taped to the bottom to keep him warm (it was below freezing out!). It was either an infection or an object was stuck under his skin. We went with the easier to treat track first, infection. I had to put antibiotic drops in the eye for 10 days and that was pretty hard in a gecko. No improvement so then it was time for risky surgery (risky because apparently such a tiny little thing can only be revived from anesthesia about half the time). I even had to sign a waiver saying I knew the risks.
A few anxious hours later the vet called to tell me he woke up and promptly bit her, which meant he was doing well. (He has never in all these years tried to bite me, but she had tiny teeth marks to show on her thumb.) She removed some strange object and then the hardest for me part came. I had to give him antibiotics every other day for two weeks. I thought eye drops were hard to administer but now I had to give him a shot, with a tiny needle, in his teeny tiny leg. It was awful. He would make this sad little sound every time, like a gecko whimper, but he never bit me like he bit the vet several times.
The scar kept some of his sheds from going well which led to him not eating as much and then his fat little tail slowly got shriveled. Lately he's been shedding well and eating like a champ again. He eats mostly live crickets and sometimes wax worms, these days in case you were wondering.
2 comments:
I had no idea that you could perform surgery on a reptile that small. Very interesting.
Poor Stanley Bob! I can't imagine him making any noise - or biting someone. I'm glad he's doing well again.
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