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Statistics Total entries in this blog: Published On: Feb 07, 2005 09:13 PM | Mon - February 7, 2005Everyone is eating well, Julep included...I'm happy to announce that my iguanas are all
eating well. Igor isn't eating as much, but he's busy running around
headbobbing - doing his breeding season thing (annoying the females). I'm
really thrilled that Julep has been eating a lot lately. The last few days I
have been going up in the lizard room with a container of fresh;y washed greens
and I'll sit on the floor while I'm covered with free roaming iguanas (okay,
only four come up and climb me for greens, but it's still pretty cool). Julep
is included in this group and she continues to eat off a plate after I'm done
hand feeding everyone.
I also think the swelling in Julep's knee has gone down some. She has completed her antibiotics. 
Posted at 09:12 PM Read More Mon - January 17, 2005Vet trip: yet another recheck for JulepI took Julep back in to see Dr. Matthew on
Saturday after lunch. Another x-ray was taken. It doesn't appear her leg has
gotten any worse, so for now she's staying on the antibiotics and we'll maybe
take another x-ray in a month or so. I think her antibiotics are messing with
her digestive tract. Since a couple days after she started the new antibiotics
she really has been passing a lot of fecal material - it's really cleaning her
out! I think her appetite is slowly increasing and she's been drinking a lot of
water. I think her increased water consumption is from her love of alfalfa
pellets, but could also be due to the medication.
Another thing I have noticed is that she really wants to climb. I have caught her climbing in her cage (front toes hooked on the hardware cloth of the top of the cage). She's been out most of the day. I placed her and Picasso on top of the mid-basking shelf and removed the ladder. They're okay with this as they get to be where they want to be without being concerned about Igor putting the moves on them. Also this evening I noticed that Julep's swollen knee doesn't feel as rock solid as it had been. When I applied gentle pressure it gave a little, which I think is a good thing. Maybe the swelling will start to go down soon. It's difficult to tell if it's really gone down at all since it is still very swollen compared to the other knee. Igor is shedding his head and is looking so much better, though his scales are really messed up now from all the bites. Posted at 09:11 PM Thu - January 13, 2005A Julep update...Julep has been getting her medication daily at
noon. She defecated on Sunday, and ate a bit for me. She did not defecate on
Monday or Tuesday and only ate what I stuck in her mouth (that I know of - she
may have eaten, but I didn't see her eat). On Wednesday she defecated - not
runny, but not real solid. I'm wondering if the medication is playing a role in
that. Her fecal material looked fine up until she'd been introduced to the new
meds for a couple days. After she defecated on Wednesday she ate some on her
own. She's still not eating with the kind of enthusiasm I was hoping for by
now, but I am happy she is eating on her own. I'll be taking her back in to see
Dr. Matthew on Saturday and she'll get another x-ray taken then. I hope she's
getting better. Her knee is still very large 8-(
Posted at 10:06 PM Fri - January 7, 2005Julep updateWell, I caught her limping before she and Igor
went to the vet. We were so concerned with her staples, and then went on to
check out Igor's hand, that we forgot to have her walk and check out what was
going on with her. Sunday I noticed that her left knee was HUGE. It was not
big at all when I brought her back in for restapling. I knew I had to talk to
Dr. Matthew to discuss her medication as she would be getting her last dosage
the following day. I called Dr. Matthew. He kept her on Baytril, but she is
now on oral Baytril and she's taking those down well. He was concerned about
the knee and wanted me to bring her in this week while he was at the hospital.
I brought her in this evening. She had an x-ray and it's showing up like she
has some osteomyelitis at the top of the tibia - post operative infection?
*sigh* She's now on Baytril as well as two other medications to hopefully nip
this in the bud. She goes back in around 7-10 days for another x-ray. If it
still shows the otsteomyelitis, options are to go in and debride the bone, and
if that doesn't work, amputation. This sucks! I'm trying to stay positive, as
she appears to be content and doing well. She's eating, defecating, active and
alert, but finally settling down a bit in her cage (maybe even liking it a bit?)
and the surgical glue is holding well and her incision looks
good.
Posted at 09:45 PM Sun - January 2, 2005Going on second week since surgery...Tomorrow is two weeks since Julep's surgery.
She's doing well, pooping everyday, headbobbing, relatively active. i think
she's finally made peace with being in her cage. She's not digging to get out
nearly as much. I wish she would eat a lot more than she does, but she is
eating and it's moving through her too, so it's all
good.
Yesterday Julep was out while I was cleaning out her cage and Igor grasped her neck and tried mating. Julep was not at all happy and was smacking him in the head with her back foot. I lifted him up a bit (he was still attached to Julep). She kept smacking him with her back foot and he finally let go. I put him up on the upper level basking spot and she hung out under the floor level basking area while I finished cleaning her cage. Igor's such a dirty old man! ;-) Can't fault him for trying. I got Igor in November 1991 from some people in Toledo, OH through a Toledo Herpetological Society newsletter classifieds ad. Apparently their kids lost interest in him. They had had him for about 1 1/2-2 years at the time I got him. I have had him 13 years, add on the time they had him and then the age he was before they got him (probably another 3-6 months). He is at least 15 years old now, maybe older. 
Posted at 07:43 PM Read More Tue - December 28, 2004Yea! - Julep's recovery - Days 6 & 7Julep had a bowel movement yesterday and today.
Her appetite isn't really back yet and she's doing more digging to get out than
resting.
I had to take her back in to the hospital to remove some staples that were coming undone (out of 16 staples in her belly - numbers 11 & 12 weren't holding. 11 was sticking back into the incision and 12 was attached on one end and floating on the other). I held her while Dr. Matthew removed those two staples as well as a few others that looked like they might not make it the full amount of time they need to be in. She did quite well through that. Putting new staples in, well she wasn't happy about that at all, and once he went to replace staples in the gap that 11 & 12 made, she squirmed and a fair amount of drainage shot out of the gap. After replacing about 4-5 staples, Dr. Matthew used surgical glue over top to reinforce the closure. Her weight was down a bit, so we need to keep an eye on that. I took Igor in to see Dr. Matthew to have his hand checked out, as well as his nose. His hand was still swollen and wasn't getting better (from an unseen bite by Picasso). Today she's still as active as ever, and the staples and incision are holding well. Since her weight is down as well as her appetite, I made her "tortillas" (iguana style) which consisted of fresh hibiscus leaves for the shell and various shredded squashes and mixed vegetables for the filler. She ate four good sized "tortillas". She also has a bowl of alfalfa pellets and a bowl of water in her cage that she can snack on and drink from throughout the day. The "tortillas" helped get her appetite back and work the dirt through her system back earlier in the year after nesting and egg-laying left her with a digestive tract of dirt from the nesting box. Her mouth doesn't close properly in front from the cage she was housed in prior to her life with me (hardware cloth cage - not very big either). I'm hoping it will get her really excited about food again. Posted at 11:50 PM Read More Sat - December 25, 2004A good Christmas, for most...Julep is doing well today - fought me on her
shots a lot today - no bleeding or seeping and she was headbobbing and cranky
afterwards. She picked at her food and drank her water that syringed down over
her nose which trickled into her mouth (because it doesn't close completely).
So she had a good day.
Igor on the other hand... he is in a mild breeding season - still eating rather well, not attacking me, but will walk up to me and sit beside me when I'm in the room for any extended period of time. If I have to make or take phone calls, I often like to be in there because it's so quiet (and warm! It was -15ºF last night, not including the windchill - the lizard room remained toasty warm). Anyway, Igor, being in his mild breeding season, likes to headbob - A LOT! Picasso wants nothing to do with breeding season and also due to her condition where she's rather immobile, has taken to biting when she feels threatened. Because Igor is missing his right eye, he often doesn't see the attacks coming. He looks awful lately. Picasso cut his lip (if you can really call it a lip?) through and through on the blind side. That is just about healed. Then Brigadune, was in breeding season (and still is, but tapering) and injured his arm and needed to be housed in a one level cage that happened to be on the floor. Igor figured out how to climb up on top of the cage and the two iguanas scuffed up their nosed very badly trying to get at each other through the hardware cloth top. I taped pillow cases hanging down from the basking spot above the cage to the upper side of the cage Brigadune was in, completely obstructing Igor's view from Brigadune, but he would work his way through an area between pillowcases and I would find him hidden away on top of Brigadune's cage where they would both be fighting through the cage top. I ended up moving a Brigadune's old cage with two levels into a spare bedroom until his breeding season ended. He and Igor kept playing off each other. Now that he's in the other room he's been very quiet, not climbing up and down his levels. From all the sparing through the cage top, both males sustained some really scabbed up noses and chins. Igor lost his lower chin scale for I think the 5th time. These scabs were slowly healing. Every time they start to get better or he sheds and his face is healed and he looks great, he goes and gets bit again. Last week he also got his hand/finger bit. I caught it right away and cleaned it well, but I think since it really didn't bleed, it may have gotten infected. It's swollen. It was looking like it was going to be fine, but it got bigger, so he'll be in to the vet's office very soon. Seems there is always something. 
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