# Worst rescue case I've recieved! My heart hurts for these 2! :(



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 3, 2013)

We really need the communities support for these guys even if its just in good thoughts. They are fighters and we will fight with them!

North Bay Tegu & Monitor Rescue has taken in 2 red tegus that desperately need our help. They are both in very rough shape but the female is the worst of them. They have numerous health issues including extreme metabolic bone disease, respiratory infections, fungal infections, internal organ damage from months of being treated with baytril by an inexperienced vet, they are being force fed, the list goes on and on. 

The female will need a blood panel, culture and xrays just to see the extent of things. The male, a blood panel and xray too. Quoted at over $700 for both. My heart is heavy right now. I fear the worst for the female. We are going to need our herp communities help saving them!

Thank you! Keep these guys in your thoughts and prayers!


----------



## Deac77 (May 4, 2013)

Good luck we are rooting for you!


----------



## BatGirl1 (May 4, 2013)

Praying...


----------



## laurarfl (May 4, 2013)

So sad seeing these and Sarah's. I know there are expenses, but is the vet working with you at all?


----------



## tegutattoos (May 4, 2013)

Man almost as bad as Angel the B/W Sarah is saving poor tegus


----------



## Aardbark (May 4, 2013)

My wishes are with you too. Is there a place where we can donate to help?


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 5, 2013)

laurarfl said:


> So sad seeing these and Sarah's. I know there are expenses, but is the vet working with you at all?



We love our vet but no, she doesnt cut us any breaks. I swear she gets WAY too much money from us but hey, thats to be expected when running a rescue! I wish our 501.c3 would hurry up so that we could apply for grants and such!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 5, 2013)

Aardbark said:


> My wishes are with you too. Is there a place where we can donate to help?



We do have a donation paypal button set up on our website www.northbaytegurescue.com and will be posting our vets contact info for over the phone donations on monday when they open. Gotta give the girls at the counter a heads up. lol so if anyone would like to donate and doesnt have paypal that would be the way. 

We are a registered rescue with our 501.c3 nonprofit papers being processed with the IRS. We run solely on personal income and donations so every little bit helps! Leo and Piper have a long road to recovery! They are so sweet too.


----------



## Deac77 (May 5, 2013)

Ok my personal opinion on what will happen from working at a vet.

Angel.
She will have to undergo surgery, they will end up removing the exposed portion of the rectum and they will have to extend the colon to replace it but fairly routine. Still a surgery not taking away from that. Then fixing the mbd and dehydration will happen but that's fairly easy.

Piper and Leo.
They will have to start with the blood panels and cultures to figure out what exactly is growing in the blood and what type of swelling is going on. From there they will have to either put the tegus on a form of lasics (drug that pulls the excess fluid off the body) a drug that in itself will require additional testing to keep it in check that's if it's organ caused . Or they will have to lance the swollen areas and allow the fluid to drain since it is causing bruising and discoloration if its from infection.

All this will need to be done before they can even start to address the fungal infection on the skin since if you open them up you can't soak them in anti fungal. Then they will have to address everything else and maybe even start a serious round of antibiotics.

Of course there is a significant chance they will all be put down if the infection has spread to far in both.


----------



## laurarfl (May 5, 2013)

I doubt they will use Lasix if there is concern about kidney damage from prolonged use of Baytril.


----------



## Deac77 (May 5, 2013)

I doubt it too mainly because I doubt it's fluid over load


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 5, 2013)

There are so many different issues with them we will have to do everything to figure it out, blood panel, cultures, xrays... very concerned on what such a long time on baytril has done to the females kidneys.


----------



## laurarfl (May 5, 2013)

Since there are two issues here and both needing donations, can we keep the threads about these separate? I did some housekeeping and moved posts to their respective tegu threads. That way we can keep up with the news and updates, etc . Thx


----------



## TeguBuzz (May 5, 2013)

Wow. Power to you for rescuing these Kayla, best of luck with them.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 6, 2013)

Thanks Tegubuzz!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 6, 2013)

If anyone would like to donate towards the vet bill of Leo & Piper, you can donate directly to our vet. Call North Park Vet. at 707- 585-2899 ask for Jill and then make a donation of any size even if its just a few dollars to Kayla Goldberg/North Bay Tegu & Monitor Rescue for Leo and Piper. Any amount helps and is greatly apprecieated. NorthBay Tegu & Monitor Rescue has an application in with the IRS for a 501.c3 nonprofit status, we run solely off of personal income and donations by our wonderful supporters. Leo & Piper thank you!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 6, 2013)

Eagerly awaiting tomorrow so we can get some answers! blood panels and cultures will be done tomorrow, hopefully xrays too.


----------



## TheTeguGurl (May 6, 2013)

Keep us updated!


----------



## laurarfl (May 6, 2013)

Sent a little bit your way for these two.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 6, 2013)

Thank you Laura!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 6, 2013)

Sorry about the poor picture quality, I'll get some good ones tomorrow


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 7, 2013)

Vet Update:
Piper, the female has enlarged lymph nodes and the vet thinks the infection is definitely systemic. We did a throat culture because she has open mouth breathing, is very frothy and inflamed mouth and gums. Mouth rot and pneumonia. She has at least 10 layers of retained shed and its even under her eye lids which is why her eyes won't open all the way and are swollen. We did a blood panel checking for multiple things and have to wait a day or two for those results. We expect some internal organ damage from being on baytril so long prescribed by another vet. She is on injectable antibiotics and needs to be soaked daily with a chlorhexidine solution and scrub. The male also has a frothy mouth with wheezing and is on antibiotics and soaks too. It's only the beginning, still a lot of testing and treatment ahead of us. Walked out at $600 later and still need to come up with more for xrays and other tests next week. Our vet is worried about the female but thinks she has a chance. We will know a lot more when the cultures and blood panels come back in a few days. 
female (Piper):












bad pic quality but her whole throat is frothy, swollen and gums very inflamed and swollen





male (Leo) : 



very inflammed and soft gums



ulcer:


----------



## BatGirl1 (May 7, 2013)

How have they even survived this way?


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 8, 2013)

phew! its 1:30am and I just got done with 2hrs of soaking and peeling on Piper. Busted out the tweezers and very gently and successfully removed all the shed that was folded under both upper and lower eyelids! I got a lot off her back and neck and tried to get as much off her toes and feet but damn she does NOT like those touched. Its thickest around her toes so it comes off easily but she doesnt like them being touched at all. Shes such a good girl though with her eyes, she knew I was helping her and she laid there super still and let me do it, it took me about 45mins too. Her eyes can open now!!!! such a big difference! I stepped out of the bathroom for a sec and when I came back in, she had found her way into some laundry left on the floor. lol silly girl!


----------



## BatGirl1 (May 8, 2013)

Yaaay!


----------



## TheTeguGurl (May 8, 2013)

ahh poor gu


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 10, 2013)

*Pipers Blood Panel Results:
Her kidneys are fine, yay! but her liver is effected. Her liver enzymes are high. 
She has pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas) and she is anemic. Also she has high inflammatory proteins hence why she is so swollen. So we are going to start her on an injectable anti-inflammatory and painkiller. Good news is that she is not sepsis and her kidneys are okay. The infection is just in the liver and skin so we'll see how she responds to meds and her soaks. Her liver was the most concerning of the results. The levels were pretty high so the xray should at least tell us if its enlarged. and hopefully the antiobiotics (that shes already on) help that.

Her skin/throat cultures should be back on Monday.*


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 10, 2013)

Laying in the sun yesterday!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 10, 2013)

Last nights soak and peel session was very productive! She now has a pretty face!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 14, 2013)

Piper update! I have stopped peeling her until she gets some pain meds. (tues or wednesday)Shes in alot of pain. I just touch her skin and she jumps and takes a deep breath and then tries to get away. I unwrapped the tip of her tail to see that it it was cutting off circulating and cutting into the skin so it goes down to the bone but its still living tissue. Might need to be amputated. Everywhere I peel there is scaring underneath. its like her skin is one big scar.


Leo: He does not like his antibiotic injections at all, takes two people to do it! & He is starting to shed on his own! Now only to get him more active. They go outside daily, Piper is always on the go but he just lays around literally ALL day long.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 14, 2013)

Man, I feel like I'm talking to myself here.


----------



## Deac77 (May 14, 2013)

I'm here!


----------



## Aardbark (May 14, 2013)

We are all listening to your updates. Its inspireing to hear these two progression back to good health. Keep it up, I know its a LOT of work.


----------



## Logie_Bear (May 18, 2013)

Wow, in some of those pics Piper doesnt even look like a real gu! So much retained shed, the poor gal looks like a plastic statuary.  The progress so far is really phenomenal. I definitely look forward to hearing more updates about them!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 22, 2013)

Piper Vet update! We ended up not doing xrays yesterday, vet says her bones feel strong and that we should focus on getting her tail amputated first. Basically a vein is bad so the tail is filling up with blood like a balloon and the blood cant escape. The amputation surgery is going to cost $548. so we are postponing it for a few days to see where we are financially. For now we have a topical anti inflammatory/pain med that has to be applied directly to the skin of the tail 4x daily and silvadine cream and bandaging to help it moist so it doesnt scab. Sadly, it looks a lot worse in person than the the pictures show, the dark parts are blood - not necrotic skin.

Pipers throat culture came back with 5 strains of bacteria
Good news is that the antibiotics that shes on is the right type to treat those strains of bacteria. Shes a fighter and I do believe she will overcome these issues, shes became very active and is quite the escape artist!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 22, 2013)

Pretty gu's now! Piper still has a few layers on her that the camera doesnt pic up but Leo is beyond gorgeous now.


----------



## BatGirl1 (May 22, 2013)

They look wonderful.your hard work is paying off <3


----------



## treysik (May 22, 2013)

Looking great! Fantastic job.


----------



## chitodadon (May 22, 2013)

Great job big boy looks great

from Samsung Galaxy S3


----------



## Aardbark (May 22, 2013)

That's like night and day, amazing. You do great work. That sounds like a lot for an amputation, how much of it is going to get cut off?


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (May 23, 2013)

I agree it does sound like a lot, I was a bit surprised when they gave me the estimate! Unfortunately the vet I go to I travel 3hrs to see because she is the best of the best in my state. but even being a rescue, I still don't get a price cut. There are other herp vets willing to work with us but none that I trust as much as her. 

She will only be removing 3-4inches, depending on the vein.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Jun 26, 2013)

For more updates: Read them here in blog form. 
http://www.northbaytegurescue.com/leo-and-piper-updates.html


----------



## Aardbark (Jun 27, 2013)

Glad to hear those two are doing well and are on the road to recovery. I love happy stories. Keep up the amazing work.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Jun 27, 2013)

Better yes, but still battling the pneumonia.


----------



## K5ander5 (Aug 9, 2013)

I dont know if the posts were moved but i was reading along and the info stops in June. Are these guys ok? I saw the male looking great but I am concerned for the female.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 10, 2013)

Sorry. Ive been keeping updates on our facebook page. 

A lot has happened since then, we did get her tail taken care of and that has healed perfectly. It was a simple procedure. 

Piper was declining and her mouth was becoming mucousy again so we took her to a different vet and did some more blood tests and an xray. Xray on both Leo and Piper shows good bone density so thats a positive. However her blood panel came back a bit more concerning than the first one. 

Its been reviewed by several vets and no one can exactly figure out what is going on and why antibiotics are not helping. 
This is the vets comments when comparing her first and second blood panel. 

"So here's what I see from May 1st: mild anemia (PCV is low), inflammatory response without a toxic change (hets are high), moderate increase in CK (muscle damage/wasting), slightly elevated total protein (dehydration). Bile acids seem a little high too but I would have to check. Keep in mind, many of the chemistries we get in reptiles are not significant, as they have different meanings in reptiles than they do in mammals. Evaluating liver function is tricky.... we have to look at trends and how certain chems look in comparison to others. So looking at LDH, CK, and Bile acids, her liver is working a little harder than normal but it is not a direct indicator of disease. As of May 8th, I would say she has inflammation/infection somewhere, weight loss/muscle wasting or muscle trauma, mild anemia due to poor body condition or a blood draw artifact, and some dehydraton. Her calcium and phos levels are normal and her Cahos ratio is normal. On to the more recent results. Her anemia is still present. Her hets and especially basos are more elevated (infection, inflammation, parasites), liver still a little stressed, but her Ca and Phos levels are still good. Her hydration status has improved. Pancreatitis? I suppose so; I see the elevated amylase but it may be inconclusive in a tegu. Studies done on iguanas suggest that elevated amylase can mean pancreatitis; however, we don't know for sure if that holds for tegus. Piper is feeling better and doing better, but I do not think her bloodwork is normal. Unless I'm reading it wrong, the het count is still very high and the baso count has skyrocketed. She is still anemic, and her bile acids are higher" 

Piper has been neglected for a long time; it will take her a while to get back to normal, or what will be "normal" for her. If she does not continue to do well, or starts declining, we will repeat blood tests. depending on the results the next step would be to start the hunt for the exact cause (via bone marrow aspirate, coelomic endoscopy).

For now, she has finished her antibiotics, she is eating great, very active and curious. She seems happy. We aren't forcing any more antibiotics on her to give her system a rest. She will receive another blood panel in 6 weeks. Its obvious that something is still going on, her mouth is still frothy but her lungs are clear. 

Shes been such a mystery and I swear Ive got some grey hairs coming in from stressing about her so much! She is a total sweetheart. 

Leo is doing well, we are focusing on getting some weight off of him.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 10, 2013)

X rays


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 10, 2013)

pics


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 10, 2013)

more pics


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 10, 2013)

Become a sponsor and get this awesome bumper sticker as a thank you.


----------



## K5ander5 (Aug 12, 2013)

ABSOLUTELY, I know I am very new with Tegus but they are so smart, active in their human interactions, and they're just flat out beautiful creatures so yeah I will be more than happy to donate and start sporting around that sticker lol


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Aug 13, 2013)

K5ander5, when you donate be sure to private message me your mailing address so I can get your bumper sticker to you!  Thank you!


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Nov 20, 2013)

Piper update! 

Shes been sleeping despite keeping her lights and heat on but she wakes up to bask for a little bit about once a week. Her body and limbs became really swollen indicating she high inflammatory proteins again and her mouth was more frothy than it normally is so we started her back on antibiotics almost 2 weeks ago. The swelling has gone down about 50% and her mouth is a bit more clear. I wish I could keep her awake for the winter as giving antibiotics to a brumating, non-eating animal always makes me nervous but at the same time not giving it to her could be more dangerous since the brumation is obviously being hard on her body. I hope she can pull through this and if she makes it through to spring I will have a lot more hope for her! This road to recovery just keeps getting longer and longer!


----------



## Aardbark (Nov 22, 2013)

The poor thing. She looks ok and ready to shed, except for the mouth stuff. Is that what mouthrot is? I hope she pulls though too, me and Zilla are both cheering for her


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Nov 22, 2013)

Unfortunately shes not ready to shed, thats just how she is, that dull color and full of scars.  
Not mouth rot but more of a systemic bacterial infection and so much going on internally that even multiple blood panels and long rounds of antibiotics cant seem to pinpoint and truely kick.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Dec 22, 2013)

Piper update:  
We have sent all her blood panels, x-rays, and history to several amazing reptile veterinarians all over the west coast and are getting bad news. Several of the vets are convinced its hepatic lipidosis or possible cancer/tumor (liver tumor). Saying basically nothing can be done since its so advanced, there is no cure or treatment and shes terminal. Our only option would do an exploratory surgery and take histopath samples, but that's expensive and basically wouldn't fix things, only possibly answer some of our questions. It would put her through too much with the chance of her not even surviving anesthesia so we have decided against that. As shes so swollen now, the prognosis is poor. He recommended euthanasia and says it may be best thing to do for her, since she most likely is in pain at this point.

I have fought so hard for her these past 8 months. She has been a real trooper and has shown me her strength and will to live, but clearly the neglect had went on far too long and it became chronic to where no amount of antibiotics or medical treatment is going to save her. She has felt what it is to be loved and I'm dreading the future as I don't want to say goodbye yet. 

However, she is still showing spirit, is active and eating well - It will be a down hill ride from here on out but she will get lots of love and spoiling during her last, however long she has.


----------



## Aardbark (Dec 22, 2013)

Poor Piper. Ive been following the updates on facebook as well. Its really sad to see her not doing so well, but she is such a fighter. Your last post there of how she woke up and was basking and said Hi really made me tear up. I am still holding on to hope that she will pull through.


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Dec 22, 2013)

Yea, that definitely her saying shes not ready to go yet. Last night she played in the shower and roamed the bedroom a little bit. She may be terminal but shes not at the point where she needs to be euthanized so until then, she gets all spoiling she deserves.


----------



## JessiGu (Dec 31, 2013)

My heart is with you and the two beautiful fighters....


----------



## SnakeCharmr728 (Feb 2, 2014)




----------

