We had to surrender our baby girl today.
It’s been a horrible day. One of the worst in my life. We picked this girl up just 3 weeks ago. She was a classroom pet. And her care was not fantastic. My friend noticed the care crested gecko and asked me to take her in because her brother couldn’t afford the vet. Honestly we couldn’t either. She had chewed parts of her toes off trying to get stuck shed on her feet. She was living in her own filth. In a pitch black windowless basement. She also had a kinked tail (possibly a little bit of MBD) Despite it all she was so lively. I let her free roam my apartment. It’s the first time in her entire life she’s ever gotten to experience that. She ran around sniffing everything. Would eat whatever leaf I shoved in her face. I would sit with her on the floor and play games on my laptop. She would fly out of her enclosure, onto my lap and lick whatever interested her on the screen. It was love at first sight. I thought this would be her forever home.
We got her to her first vet appointment. He agreed that she looked lively and prescribed her some oral antibiotics and told me to bathe her daily for 30 minutes at a time. Advice I knew I shouldn’t have followed. But I was stupid to assume the vet knew best. After 1 week, she started to develop symptoms of a URI. I was terrified and got her into the emergency vet at a different clinic the next day. Although I was there for her URI, he was more concerned about her feet. He prescribed me an injection antibiotic to help with her foot and he assured me that it should clear up her URI. He also handed me a bill for $700 worth of other stuff he wanted to do and we talked through it and I really just wanted to focus on her URI for now. The vet assistants injected her and walked me through it and then sent me home. Oh and they also gave me a place to call for pain meds but told me it was optional.
After we got home her condition deteriorated fast. Be it that they pricked her nerve wrong or just made light of the pain and injection can cause, she was not doing well.. by the time I noticed she was impaired she had made her first fall.. I had completely cleared out her enclosure after that but it was too late. She landed wrong on her neck and her spine was contorted into a C shape. I was devastated. She went from being a sick little girl to nearly paralyzed in 24 hours.. It was hard to watch her. Devastating.. I sobbed all day. My fiancé did the best he could to help care for her. It was all hands on deck till her next vet appointment. I was hoping to hear good news. Like she was just impacted from not pooping for a while, or it’s just a pain response but he literally couldn’t help. He didn’t know exactly what was wrong with her.. and he referred me to a different vet. Despite being the best reptile vet in town, that vet no longer works in an exotic clinic. I already was fed up with how the exotic vets in town were. Giving me poor advice, not giving me all the side effects for her medications, having horrible husbandry recommendations. All of it. Horrible.
I knew she needed help. Big time. And ASAP. As soon as it was clear no good vets in the area could see her within the next 24 hours. So I decided to call around to find a rehab facility that had room for her. We drove her the 3 hours there. She flinched at every bump. Despite her pain, I brought her iPad for her so she could watch tv. She loves watching TV. She’d go to the far end of her enclosure so that she could see into the living room to watch. When I put it on she sat up. And looked over her shoulder to watch it. She’s still Mako after all. Despite her lethargic and pain, she’s still my baby girl..
I handed her off to the herpetological society in Chicago. An older man scooped her up, put his nose to hers, playfully told her he was going to fight with her if she doesn’t take her medicine. I know she’s in good hands. He told me about all the bugs she was going to get to eat. And how she’s going to see a great vet. And as much as I’ll miss her and as much as I’m still heartbroken. I knew we did the right thing.
I’m so upset. I feel so defeated. I did everything I could to save her.. but it’s like everything horrible that could’ve possibly happened to her did. I poured my soul into caring for her. Im in between work.. so for the past 3 weeks she’s never left my sight. I laid on the floor in a sleeping bag with her.. I woke up early because I was excited to get to see her.. she means the world to me. And I feel broken without her. I love my crested gecko. But she’s skittish and I don’t like to push handling because I know it just stresses her out.. now I have a mako sized hole in my heart.. and an empty enclosure. I don’t know if I could take another bearded dragon again.. I’m afraid I’ll just want them to be like mako and they won’t be. And if they got sick I wouldn’t have anywhere to take them.. hell im terrified now the if my cresty gets sick I have nowhere to go..
This is a picture of my beautiful girl.. happy and healthy.. as healthy as I got to know her at lea
.