Snake Issues.
The past couple months have been ridiculous with my snake Echo. She’s this beautiful little corn snake; a zig-zag ghost. And I love her to bits. She’s one of the sweetest snakes anyone could ask for, and being my first snake, she holds a very special place in my heart.
So, two months ago, I started noticing that she couldn’t close her mouth all the way, and she was starting to do this wheezing noise whenever she had to be active. When she didn’t shed after her eye caps turned blue and then dark, I knew she needed to go to the vet. He diagnosed her with a respiratory infection (which I had already guessed). He said that the shed was a problem here because the skin was stuck to her nostrils, making it harder for her to breathe and probably an addition to the infection or the cause. He removed the skin from her face, and she shed in a matter of minutes; that skin was ready to come off! The vet then gave me a 14 day shot treatment for her, which I administered to her.
After all the shots were done, I continued to watch her closely. I noticed that her right eye was starting to get this crusty color, and I figured there was something either wrong with the eye or the eye cap was retained.. which was weird since I saw the vet take off the cap. Well, after this started happening, I noticed her belly get to a milky color, which means she was going to shed soon. I watched for the blue-phase on her eye caps, but that never came. Then two Thursdays ago, June 10th, I came home to find a nice looking shed in her cage. I was excited, hoping maybe that eye cap came off.
As I pulled the screen off the top of her cage, it caught on something. Only then did I realize that the top had been broken, by what I’m positive was my cat sitting her fat little bottom on it, and the weight of her breaking the screen from its frame. Panicking, I got the screen off and fished my hand through all of her bedding. There was no snake to be found. I spent the next four hours rummaging through every room to find her. Still no luck. Eventually I accepted the fact that she would come out when she wanted to, and it would only be a matter of time before I found her.. alive or dead.
Early saturday morning (2am to be exact), I found my little girl slithering over my desk chair. It took me about 10 seconds of staring at the end of her tail to realize that she was found and I wasn’t imagining anything. The moment was bittersweet as I picked her up, looking her over to see if she had been harmed. Overall, she was fine… except that her entire eye was bulging out of the socket. My heart sank. But this wasn’t a time to dwell on that factor; Echo had been without water for over a week and without food for almost three (since I feed her weekly and she got out on mouse day). Immediately I turned on a faucet and held her delicate face next to the water. She drank for about 3 minutes straight, and all of her movements were so slow. She was terribly weak, and her color was so pale. My friend who spent the night that night held her to get her temperature warmed up as I prepared my temporary cage for her.
As soon as I woke up that day, I checked on her. Her eye was bloody. A gruesome sight. But she had regained some strength from drinking all that water. She looked a bit more plump, and her movements were a little faster. I fed her that afternoon, and although she barely was able to strike at the mouse, she gobbled it up without hesitation. So that was good. I’m taking her to the vet on wednesday since it’s the soonest they had an appointment. We’ll see what they have to say.
