An Update on Kiwi the Chameleon

One of my chameleon rescues, Kiwi, came back to me a couple months ago and I put her immediately into a new foster home. After a month or two, Kiwi stopped eating and I had a vet tech friend take her. The 2nd move stressed her out and she ended up at my Utah vets’ office today where they found her belly and throat filled with fluid. It’s not looking good for her. 

Right now I’m waiting on the blood work results to come back. 

Kiwi was a spontaneous pet store purchase. She didn’t have a good cage or a good UVB light and had severe Metabolic Bone Disease when I got her. Her bones were so fragile that the moment she started crawling along her new screen tank, her arm & leg bones broke. She spent several months in a flat 10 gallon sick tank while we strengthened her bones. MBD has long lasting consequences on bones and internal organs (like the kidneys & liver). 

Today's Vet Visit

Today was a BIG trip to the vet. I took Kiwi the chameleon, Noel, Tiger, and the female gecko who had been chomped on by her mate.

Kiwi passed her exam with flying colors! Her bones are strong, her casque is firm, and she gained 4 grams. She is ready to move on with life. Woo hoo! Even Dr Folland said she had an amazing transformation. :) I didn't take a single pic of her. I mostly left her in her ice cream bucket because she hates being held & looked at.

Noel has doubled his weight since I took him to the vet last and tripled his weight since I rescued him. He's such a handsome boy. He's already getting ready to shed again.

Noel decided to poop while we were waiting for the vet. OH BOY! It smelled SO bad! I let them do a fecal test on it and it turns out that Noel is loaded with coccidia. We'll be treating him for that. He has an eyelid defect that makes his eye get really goopy and I'll give him two different eye drops for a week to see if that helps.

The female gecko actually looks good and acts good. Hopefully she'll start eating on her own soon. No pics of her.

Tiger did NOT like his vet visit at all. Poor guy is very miserable & sickly. His breathing is labored, his mouth is yellowing, his eyes are swollen, his nose is dripping, and he has severe diarrhea. We have exhausted almost all possibilities with him except for the $500 CT scan. Even that is not likely to show us anything that can be actually fixed. My daughter adopted him after her beloved beardie, Lizzie, died and she's loved on him ever since.

After Dr Folland examined him thoroughly, Tiger looked terrible. He folded his arms across his chest and kept his eyes shut tightly. :(

By the time we left, Tiger was looking less deathly.

It's hard to know what to do with him. He had a really bad beginning and was practically dead when I rescued him. This is what he looked like: 

Sometimes it's just not possible to ultimately overcome a bad beginning. I'm not sure what we will be able to do with Tiger next. I'm honestly going to have to pray about it and talk to my husband and daughter about it. $500 is a lot for a test that is not likely to show us something we can fix. 

Another hard part of rescue. 

Sickly Tiger worries Teddy

I had Tiger out tonight so I could see how his breathing sounded. He's been sick lately though we haven't been able to figure out what is wrong with him. He sounds worse tonight than he ever has. He's got a vet appointment in the morning and I'm hoping maybe his symptoms are more obvious now that we can figure out what is happening.

Every time Tiger took a wheezing, gurgly breath, Teddy (who had to sit on my lap too) showed deep concern.

I tried to take a video of Tiger's breathing, but he stopped gasping and gurgling every time I had the video feature on. Hopefully he'll do it tomorrow for Dr Folland so we can figure out what is wrong and how to fix him.

Tiger's eyes are hugely swollen and they leak tears/fluid. His nose leaks fluid too. His mouth seems abnormally red. His breathing is labored. This will be the 4th time we've taken Tiger back to the vet in the past 3 months. His blood work and physical exams have all been fine. Perhaps he had an early onset respiratory infection that wasn't showing up yet?? I'm stumped. Dr Folland has been stumped. Tiger is worse now and I'm hoping that will make it more obvious what we should do now. We've tried antibiotic shots, antibiotic eyedrops, flushing the eyes with saline, flushing his nose with saline, anti-inflammatory eye drops, etc.

I'll update you tomorrow.

Noel is also going back in because his eye never cleared up, and Kiwi will hopefully get an "All Clear" report for her MBD and broken bones.

Kiwi's Upgrade

Kiwi has been eating on her own and getting around in her sick tank more lately so I decided it was time to put her into a small screen cage. I moved her over tonight. 

I'll watch her closely for the next few days to make sure she's not falling or struggling to hold on. I think her broken bones have knit together enough now that she is ready to go back to being more chameleon like. Today alone she spent most of the day on the small ladder turned sideways in her cage instead of sitting on the towel on the bottom of the tank.

Hopefully she'll start to get stronger and more active in a more normal chameleon environment and then I can upgrade her back into a large screen cage with lots of room. My goal for her is to become like a regular chameleon again.

Kiwi and Noel at the Vet

On Monday, I took Noel and Kiwi back to the vet for checkups.

Kiwi still has soft bones from the MBD but is making progress. She has put on some weight (thankfully since I'm still tube feeding her everyday). Dr Folland gave her another shot of calcium and another shot of Calcitonin (a steroid that helps pull calcium back into bones). He thinks she'll be good in the long run. Her back legs are still very rubbery and she has little to no control over them. That should change as they become firmer and she gains strength.

Eventually, Kiwi will be shipped to my friend in California who adopted Newt and Akime & Lotus and Hazel and my baby tortoises. It's a chameleon rescue that I absolutely adore! Kiwi will be given a specially made "handicapped" play stand that she can be on indoors and outdoors. California sunshine is a great cure for MBD.

She will go back for another check up in a month or so to see how she's doing. It will be March or April before it's warm enough to ship her. That gives me lots of time to get her strong again.

Noel was 62 grams when I rescued him right before Christmas. On Monday, he was 95 grams. He is doing SO much better. They took an x-ray to see what is in his belly and didn't find any hard substrate. For some reason, he has a soft tissue mass in his belly. But we are going to leave it alone for now and watch it.

Noel is finally starting to shed and has the most beautiful yellow coloring starting to show through. His beard is streaked with yellow instead of that crap brown staining. I'm so excited for his body to fully shed so I can see how beautiful he is.

This little guy has so much spunk and personality! He LOVES food, but hates when roach legs touch his mouth (he spits them out). He loves to be held but he can't hold still. He likes to stand up on his two back legs to try to catch food (I keep trying to take a pic, but he doesn't hold still for me). He's spunky and attacks the syringe when I feed him Critical Care (for extra calories). He LOVES that syringe! It's funny to watch.

Poor Broken Kiwi

While I had the flu, my husband took Kiwi the chameleon and Baby Sawyer to the vet and dropped them off for me.

Kiwi's assessment was bad. :( She has severe Metabolic Bone Disease which has caused multiple long, lateral fractures in her arms and legs. She has limited mobility currently because her legs are so broken. Poor baby! Because her bones are so empty of calcium, every climb and movement broke them further.

Kiwi got a shot of calcium and a shot of Calcitonin (a miracle med that helps pull calcium back into the bones). The vet also measured a tube for her so we can tube feed her nutrition daily.

Here at my house, Kiwi is in a 10 gallon tank. I had her in a screen cage, but she wouldn't stop climbing the walls. She mostly just sits on her belly or side during the day. I'm sure it is almost impossible for her to walk without pain.

She has a long road of recovery ahead of her. It's going to take awhile for her bones to heal and for her calcium levels to become normal again. So far she's not eating on her own, so I'm still tube feeding her.

Her last owners provided a UVB light for her, but it was a coil bulb and not very effective. Young chameleons particularly need a high powered, quality bulb to help them metabolize calcium as they grow so much in the first year. Perhaps an adult chameleon with strong bones who is done growing would be okay with a coil UVB, but never a baby. Kiwi will be handicapped for the rest of her life and will not likely grow very big either.

Kiwi has really struggled the last few days and I've found myself wondering if we did the right thing by keeping her alive and trying to help her heal. I'll keep watching her and discussing her with my vet. If it becomes unkind or unfair to keep her alive, then I will let Dr Folland put her down. To force her to live because I want her to isn't humane at all. Without my intervention, she would have already died, but that doesn't mean I now have to keep her alive at any cost.

Poor Kiwi. :(

Changes for Kiwi

The stress of moving Kiwi and putting her into a bigger tank has really taken its toll on her. Poor baby has even worse coordination in her back legs than before. I feel so bad that I didn't start off putting her into a short, sick tank in the beginning.

I took her out of the tall Reptibreeze cage and put her into a small one with no climbing branches. This is the same thing I had to do with Newt years ago because his coordination was so bad.

While I was swapping out the cages, I had my girl hold Kiwi. Kiwi is super happy to just sit, curled up in a ball. It's very adorable, but very tragic. 

I added in a tiny bed that Newt used to love for her. She wasn't thrilled with it and tried to climb the mesh instead. At one point, she even reached out flailing with her front arm and latched on to her eyeball instead. It looked just like Newt! So sad! 

I've been chatting with my chameleon expert friends so I can get a better idea of what to do with Kiwi. Until today, she didn't seem that bad. Her legs were a little wobbly yesterday, but I thought she was okay. Today I can see how bad it is. Our guess is that she has poor coordination and mobility due to Metabolic Bone Disease and possibly some nutritional deficiencies. 

She's got a brand new Mercury Vapor bulb on her tank and today I gave her some carnivore Critical Care mixed with Repashy's Calcium Plus powder. I'll keep doing that every day for awhile so we can get her calcium levels back up. I may or may not take her to the vet this week. 

I know people think chameleons are cool, but they are HARD! Especially in Utah where it's so dry. I'm glad this little girl is with me now. I'll work my hardest to get her all better and then she'll go to my friend in California who has Lotus, Akime, and Hazel (the last female cham who I never named). California's climate is much better for chameleons than Utah's is. 

Rescue Chaos & Overlaod

My house looks like a rescue bomb went off. I got home from vacation a week ago and had vacation things and Christmas things and everyday stuff to put away. Add to that 6 separate rescues in 5 days, and my house is crazy. And I had to open my Etsy shop back up. On top of all it, I got sick while we were in California and I can't seem to get the cold out of my lungs. And it's ridiculously frozen here-- like the high is 17 degrees.

Here's the thermometer on the dashboard yesterday as I was picking up Lily and Kiwi. Ignore the dust. I obviously need to clean out my van again. 17 degrees.

Blah.

So here's an in-depth look at a few of the areas in my house where things sorta exploded.

I've tried to use my shelves to keep things organized. Um, I'm pretty much failing at this.

Once upon a time, I had a nice desk set up for writing at. Now it just holds random light bulbs- are they dead or not? I can't remember-- and random supplies I set down and never put away.

Lily & Leo are on the floor of my bedroom since all the shelf space was taken by other tanks.

We recently moved my crafty room/Etsy shop down into our front room. I think there were, like, 12 seconds when it was actually organized. Now? Nope.

Supplies from Christmas, new Etsy material I haven't listed, a Halloween decoration or two, and more tanks that didn't have anywhere else to be put.

This was originally my "Critical Care" area with Gumby, Sunny (the baby ball python), and Baby Sawyer. It keeps me from using my table for working on Etsy, but it got the tanks off my kitchen counter.

We added 8 foot bookcases in the craft room to store our massive collections of books (I love books!) and the shelves end up housing random reptile equipment too.

My fridge supplies are sorta contained to one shelf in the fridge. So I keep the Critical Care between the Oyster sauce, pineapple juice, and horseradish. Oh and the extra ketchup package from Chick-fil-A.

Also in the kitchen-- in plain sight so I don't forget-- are my baggies of syringes for the sicklies I'm feeding. They are right next to the Christmas goodies that were given to us that we haven't eaten yet.

The living room isn't quite as bad either. I've been trying to move Georgie around and put her in a bigger box by herself. She keeps getting bumped off the list and I haven't gotten around to her yet. I let her free roam a couple days ago and she's quite happy with it.

The chameleon cage-- which I keep promising myself to not use for a long time-- actually sat in the garage for a week and a half! Woo hoo! It is now back on the side table in front of two south facing windows in my living room. Kiwi is having a hard time with her back legs and so I have the bottom of her cage lined with blankets so she can't fall and hurt herself. Just in case, I also have my small cage set out in case I need to downsize her.

The grandfather clock that I inherited when my grandparents died is one of my favorite possessions in my house. I recently just got it fixed so it's back to chiming every 15 minutes. It too gets to share in the rescue chaos. It's my "Shed Storage." Here's sheds from at least 5 different snakes. Under my great horned owl puppet, there's a baggie with a lot of interesting beardie sheds.

Yesterday all of the beardie tanks were cleaned too. . . . Not that you can tell!  Dash did some serious poop painting and Neville has been rearranging his.

Maybe one of these days I'll actually get myself organized, but definitely not until I get over this stupid cold (both the one in my body and the nasty cold outside!) Can't wait until Spring!!

Kiwi, rescue 170

I'm on a local reptile group on Facebook and I get tagged ALL the time. ALL THE TIME!

Yesterday, I made this to express my feelings for being tagged on E.V.E.R.Y. sick, sad, lonely reptile post that comes up.

Last night's tag?

A sick chameleon.

Yes, another chameleon. I just got rid of my last chameleon! I took the no name chameleon to California last week!

And I have another one.

Kiwi is 6 months old and did not look good on her "For Sale" pic that someone shared. And I got tagged.

Moments before I arrived, Kiwi had crawled to the bottom of her tank and curled up into a hide on the ground. That is very BAD. Her colors were dark and she was all curled into a ball. Her colors improved as I held her, but she still didn't recover all the way.

Her ankles and wrists are lumpy which is a good indicator of Metabolic Bone Disease. Her jaw is okay, not super floppy, which surprised me. I carried her home in my shirt (instead of the ice cream bucket chameleon carrier). I put her in my big cage with a brand new Mercury Vapor Bulb on top.

Kiwi is still pretty freaked out by all the changes. I've tried to leave her alone as much as possible today. Tomorrow, I'll force feed her some calcium and food.

Yes, another chameleon. A female.

Tally ho!

This week has been CRAZY! So many rescues and my stupid phone still won't talk to my Blogger app so I have to do all my blog updates on my laptop. That's why I post four or five in a row.