It has been a very rough time at my house lately. I just lost my sweet Loretta, my female panther. So soon after Oscar and so unexpectedly. I knew she was holding a clutch longer than normal but was still eating, active, and being her normal social self so I waited patiently and kept her laying bin how she likes it. She's never had a problem with egg laying before. And about a month and a half overdue she suddenly had sunken in eyes one morning. So I brought home some oxytocin and calcium gluconate and with just one injection she laid the whole clutch within two hours. She didn't dig a hole but she dropped them all so I thought we were good. Exactly one week later when I went in to feed she was falling off her branch, eyes very sunken again and looked bad. I rushed her to work with me and did X-rays and ultrasound which looked normal, gave her some fluids, antiinflammatories, and antibiotics in case of coelomitis. I was even considering taking her to surgery in case she had a ruptured egg yolk to flush it out, but in her state I knew that would kill her. She perked up over the next two days and I was hopeful. And the next morning she was gone. On her necropsy everything looked normal - no coelomitis or ruptured egg yolk or anything. I sent off organ samples looking for microscopic disease and those came back all normal as well. I don't know what happened. She was such a sweet girl and I just don't know what went wrong.
The hardest part about being a vet is knowing an animal is sick and not being able to help it. And it's so much worse when it's my own animal.
Loretta is just one of many heartbreaks lately...Buster my jacksons died of old age a few months ago, then a rescue turtle I was rehabbing, then Oscar my favorite cham ever, then a rescue tortoise I was trying really hard to save (he was in terrible shape unfortunately from ten years of abuse), then Dot my baby turtle after my *** of a cat forcefully broke into her cage, then sweet Loretta, and I just checked on my turtles in hibernation and found Pancakes my 50+ year old tortoise just died in the last week between weighings. Temps were perfect, his weight was steady, he hadnt been under too long at all. AND to top it off my dog Moki has been fighting off lymphoma for the last 4 years and has just stopped responding to her chemo, and there is really not much left to try with everything she's been through (to amazing success at least). So....if you haven't seen me around lately it's because I can't bear to talk animals too much right now as there has been an unfair share of heartbreak in my house lately.
The hardest part about being a vet is knowing an animal is sick and not being able to help it. And it's so much worse when it's my own animal.
Loretta is just one of many heartbreaks lately...Buster my jacksons died of old age a few months ago, then a rescue turtle I was rehabbing, then Oscar my favorite cham ever, then a rescue tortoise I was trying really hard to save (he was in terrible shape unfortunately from ten years of abuse), then Dot my baby turtle after my *** of a cat forcefully broke into her cage, then sweet Loretta, and I just checked on my turtles in hibernation and found Pancakes my 50+ year old tortoise just died in the last week between weighings. Temps were perfect, his weight was steady, he hadnt been under too long at all. AND to top it off my dog Moki has been fighting off lymphoma for the last 4 years and has just stopped responding to her chemo, and there is really not much left to try with everything she's been through (to amazing success at least). So....if you haven't seen me around lately it's because I can't bear to talk animals too much right now as there has been an unfair share of heartbreak in my house lately.
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