jannb
Chameleon Enthusiast
I never expected to make this post. At least not so soon. And in the weeks since I’ve started I’ve also stopped almost a dozen times. It’s still unfathomable to me that he’s gone.
Hank had an incredible bond with my family, petsitter and even some special friends. I often said he was my therapy boy. Hank made the house so cheerful from morning till night and is very sadly missed.
An infection got Hank. It all started with a chin rub from his outside enclosure back in August. Hank hated being caged and we only took him out an hour max, a few days a week because he quickly grew board in the cage and wanted out and would rub his nose and face on the plastic coated hardware cloth. He was treated with Baytril along with oral antibiotics after the infection was cleaned out but a culture a few weeks later said the infection was still not completely gone so then he was treated with injectable antibiotics and oral for another 12 weeks. This time the infection was better so the vet decided to give Hank a break from antibiotics. This lasted about a month and the infection built back up in his nose and into the roof of his mouth. The infection was cleaned out again and bloodwork was done to see how Hank’s liver and kidneys were holding out. The bloodwork looked good and Hank was put on a very harsh antibiotic that we used in a nubulizer for about a month along with an oral antibiotic. Our friends Dr. Ivan Alfonso and his wife came for a visit and Ivan cleaned the infection out really well and put him on Clindamycin and Vetericyn oral antibiotic for about a month. This seems to work really well but his culture still showed some infection was there. Hank stared getting worse in December and this time we couldn’t get the infection under control and we lost Hank back before Christmas, just shy of his 4th birthday. To say our family was saddened is an understatement. But I owe it to his memory to share his pictures so that his memory is eternal.
Baby Hank
Hank had an incredible bond with my family, petsitter and even some special friends. I often said he was my therapy boy. Hank made the house so cheerful from morning till night and is very sadly missed.
An infection got Hank. It all started with a chin rub from his outside enclosure back in August. Hank hated being caged and we only took him out an hour max, a few days a week because he quickly grew board in the cage and wanted out and would rub his nose and face on the plastic coated hardware cloth. He was treated with Baytril along with oral antibiotics after the infection was cleaned out but a culture a few weeks later said the infection was still not completely gone so then he was treated with injectable antibiotics and oral for another 12 weeks. This time the infection was better so the vet decided to give Hank a break from antibiotics. This lasted about a month and the infection built back up in his nose and into the roof of his mouth. The infection was cleaned out again and bloodwork was done to see how Hank’s liver and kidneys were holding out. The bloodwork looked good and Hank was put on a very harsh antibiotic that we used in a nubulizer for about a month along with an oral antibiotic. Our friends Dr. Ivan Alfonso and his wife came for a visit and Ivan cleaned the infection out really well and put him on Clindamycin and Vetericyn oral antibiotic for about a month. This seems to work really well but his culture still showed some infection was there. Hank stared getting worse in December and this time we couldn’t get the infection under control and we lost Hank back before Christmas, just shy of his 4th birthday. To say our family was saddened is an understatement. But I owe it to his memory to share his pictures so that his memory is eternal.
Baby Hank
. It’s always hard to loose them, but sometimes it hits really hard. Thank you for sharing this experience, as you know it may help others in the future. He was an absolute georgeous boy, who was just as lucky to have you as you were him. 
