Tweet
I was worried about her, so I took her out of the terrarium, and let her lie in my hand, like she liked. She was very lethargic, and barely resisted when I put her on her back (I didn't leave her that way, though). She wanted to be in the dark, as she kept moving toward things she could hide underneath when I set her on the table to look up common illnesses for bearded dragons. I set her back in my hand, and covered her with a folded piece of paper, and she relaxed.
A few minutes later, she started to move around a bit. I removed the piece of paper to see that she was biting one of her feet. I set her on a piece of tissue on the table, and she squirmed around in three circles, biting arbitrarily, writhed in what I would imagine to be excruciating pain, opened her mouth wide, looked at me with gaping eyes full of terror, slowed her squirming, stopped, slowly closed her mouth, closed her eyes, and dropped her head onto the table. I gently stroked her back with my finger while she died. Maybe this gave her some familiarity. I don't think anything could have comforted her.
I moved her around, set her on her back, hung her by her tail...everything I could to ensure she was really dead. My efforts in vain, I placed her on a saucer to perform a basic autopsy. I went to get my tools: a scalpel, a pair of tweezers, two latex gloves. When I returned, one of her legs twitched. I assumed this was reflex, but to be sure, I nudged her a little. Another twitch. Still under the assumption this was probably reflex, I moved her all around the saucer. Every one of my actions seemed to generate a reaction in Boonie. I couldn't see any sign of respiration, but I hadn't been able to very often before. Using my stethoscope, I could swear I heard a faint heartbeat. I remembered having read (immediately prior to Boonie's squirming) that if bearded dragons displayed the symptoms she had, they were likely suffering from bowel inpactment, likely caused by something eaten that was too large. The best way to treat this, and possibly save the dragon, is to immerse it up to the shoulders in very warm water.
Supposing that she may be in shock, I ran a "urine-warm" sink bath for Boonie, submerged her body below the underarms, and waited. After a few minutes, I began to get discouraged. The experts had stated twenty minutes a day for conscious, responsive dragons to encourage passing a bowel movement, so I held in there. A leg kicked. Boonie lifted her head, looked up at me, grabbed my finger with all of her legs, and held on tight, keeping her head above the water. I was hopeful, but realistic. Chances were, I knew, she would still not survive. I'd brought her back to life, maybe, but she still had something obstructing her bowels. She opened her mouth a little, as if to scream in pain, but no noise came...like a person who's been stabbed in the kidneys, in too much pain to even know how to scream. There was no time during this entire ordeal that I felt she was not in the most intense pain imagineable. Despite this, I made the call to make her fight for her life, rather than killing her in expectations of death. I would always wonder if I could have saved her if I hadn't. Boonie's mouth was now gaping wider than I'd imagined it could, and her head jerked from side to side. Having been in extreme pain a few times in my life, I understood these movements for what they were: pure, insect-level despair; not having any idea what to do, but knowing by instinct that SOMETHING should be done, if nothing else, to distract you from the pain. Her eyes were wide again, and this time I could see that her pupils were dilated. My only solace is that this indicated shock, so perhaps she was starting to escape the pain. Her head stopped darting, resting in an upward position to her right, her body twisted toward the same direction. Her hind legs were now straight backward, as is listed as an absolute symptom of bowel impactment. She would not move, and went completely limp again.
I removed her from the water, moved her about every which way, then released the water, and filled the sink with hot water rather than warm. What had I to lose? I spent a good ten minutes with her emerged there, and she started jerking around again. I kept her abdomen submerged as long as I could - she kept squirming out of my hand, and into the water, and I didn't want her to drown. I set her on the counter, and let her run through the writhing cycle again. She did the same thing again, except this time, her eyes never closed, and neither did her mouth, until her head rested on the counter, closing it. I attempted another hot bath, which lasted twenty five minutes, to no avail. I dried her off gently, then placed the stethoscope on her chest again - clearly nothing. I laid her back on the tissue on the table, and waited 30 minutes. Nothing. I moved her around a few more times, took her into the bathroom, and used a hair dryer on high in gradually decreasing distance from her, to the point where I couldn't stand the heat anymore...nothing. I pronounced her dead at around 11:50PM (August 18th, 2006), and used the scalpel to remove her head, in case she did awaken in the middle of her autopsy. Nothing was lodged in her throat or upper GI, but very near the rectum, I found a small piece of tree bark, about three times the diameter of her intestine everywhere else.
So, Boonie died of impacted bowel due to eating a piece of tree bark, either in the same mouthful as a cricket, or by tasting it to see what it was. This probably happened in her original terrarium, judging by the onset of symptoms before she was introduced to the larger terrarium. Looking deeply into the issue, a few experts suggest substrate (material used in place of natural ground) made of either a solid material, such as newspaper, astroturf, etc. or something like find grain sand (dirt-based; regular sand contains glass crystals, which could shred the bowels of a bearded dragon) or dirt. Others make no mention of this, and even go so far as to recommend tree bark itself. It seems baby bearded dragons are highly immature and nieve, and have roughly no idea about anything, much like a human baby. I wish I had known about this sooner, and that perhaps the sites I went to had gone into a little more detail concerning such important matters.
In any case, griping won't bring Boonie back. Her remains are in a garbage bag, in queue to be taken out tomorrow. Boonie's death seems to have affected me more than most human deaths I've seen; even the ones that went similarly. Boonie looked up at me as if to ask for help, though there was nothing I could do but look back, blankly. It even seemed she realized this.
Boonie has left a lasting impression. She was really intelligent...she got excited and wanted to sit on my hand when I whistled. She tried to eat everything green, even if was the WindowsXP start menu button. She watched, and was fascinated by, TV and any computers that were on (and she chased the mouse cursor, heh). She seemed to only be comfortable when she was sitting in my hand (or Ms_LB's), or clinging to my shirt and sleeping on my chest. She was interested in everything, and made it seem almost as if I had a human baby, heh. I'll really miss her.
A few minutes later, she started to move around a bit. I removed the piece of paper to see that she was biting one of her feet. I set her on a piece of tissue on the table, and she squirmed around in three circles, biting arbitrarily, writhed in what I would imagine to be excruciating pain, opened her mouth wide, looked at me with gaping eyes full of terror, slowed her squirming, stopped, slowly closed her mouth, closed her eyes, and dropped her head onto the table. I gently stroked her back with my finger while she died. Maybe this gave her some familiarity. I don't think anything could have comforted her.
I moved her around, set her on her back, hung her by her tail...everything I could to ensure she was really dead. My efforts in vain, I placed her on a saucer to perform a basic autopsy. I went to get my tools: a scalpel, a pair of tweezers, two latex gloves. When I returned, one of her legs twitched. I assumed this was reflex, but to be sure, I nudged her a little. Another twitch. Still under the assumption this was probably reflex, I moved her all around the saucer. Every one of my actions seemed to generate a reaction in Boonie. I couldn't see any sign of respiration, but I hadn't been able to very often before. Using my stethoscope, I could swear I heard a faint heartbeat. I remembered having read (immediately prior to Boonie's squirming) that if bearded dragons displayed the symptoms she had, they were likely suffering from bowel inpactment, likely caused by something eaten that was too large. The best way to treat this, and possibly save the dragon, is to immerse it up to the shoulders in very warm water.
Supposing that she may be in shock, I ran a "urine-warm" sink bath for Boonie, submerged her body below the underarms, and waited. After a few minutes, I began to get discouraged. The experts had stated twenty minutes a day for conscious, responsive dragons to encourage passing a bowel movement, so I held in there. A leg kicked. Boonie lifted her head, looked up at me, grabbed my finger with all of her legs, and held on tight, keeping her head above the water. I was hopeful, but realistic. Chances were, I knew, she would still not survive. I'd brought her back to life, maybe, but she still had something obstructing her bowels. She opened her mouth a little, as if to scream in pain, but no noise came...like a person who's been stabbed in the kidneys, in too much pain to even know how to scream. There was no time during this entire ordeal that I felt she was not in the most intense pain imagineable. Despite this, I made the call to make her fight for her life, rather than killing her in expectations of death. I would always wonder if I could have saved her if I hadn't. Boonie's mouth was now gaping wider than I'd imagined it could, and her head jerked from side to side. Having been in extreme pain a few times in my life, I understood these movements for what they were: pure, insect-level despair; not having any idea what to do, but knowing by instinct that SOMETHING should be done, if nothing else, to distract you from the pain. Her eyes were wide again, and this time I could see that her pupils were dilated. My only solace is that this indicated shock, so perhaps she was starting to escape the pain. Her head stopped darting, resting in an upward position to her right, her body twisted toward the same direction. Her hind legs were now straight backward, as is listed as an absolute symptom of bowel impactment. She would not move, and went completely limp again.
I removed her from the water, moved her about every which way, then released the water, and filled the sink with hot water rather than warm. What had I to lose? I spent a good ten minutes with her emerged there, and she started jerking around again. I kept her abdomen submerged as long as I could - she kept squirming out of my hand, and into the water, and I didn't want her to drown. I set her on the counter, and let her run through the writhing cycle again. She did the same thing again, except this time, her eyes never closed, and neither did her mouth, until her head rested on the counter, closing it. I attempted another hot bath, which lasted twenty five minutes, to no avail. I dried her off gently, then placed the stethoscope on her chest again - clearly nothing. I laid her back on the tissue on the table, and waited 30 minutes. Nothing. I moved her around a few more times, took her into the bathroom, and used a hair dryer on high in gradually decreasing distance from her, to the point where I couldn't stand the heat anymore...nothing. I pronounced her dead at around 11:50PM (August 18th, 2006), and used the scalpel to remove her head, in case she did awaken in the middle of her autopsy. Nothing was lodged in her throat or upper GI, but very near the rectum, I found a small piece of tree bark, about three times the diameter of her intestine everywhere else.
So, Boonie died of impacted bowel due to eating a piece of tree bark, either in the same mouthful as a cricket, or by tasting it to see what it was. This probably happened in her original terrarium, judging by the onset of symptoms before she was introduced to the larger terrarium. Looking deeply into the issue, a few experts suggest substrate (material used in place of natural ground) made of either a solid material, such as newspaper, astroturf, etc. or something like find grain sand (dirt-based; regular sand contains glass crystals, which could shred the bowels of a bearded dragon) or dirt. Others make no mention of this, and even go so far as to recommend tree bark itself. It seems baby bearded dragons are highly immature and nieve, and have roughly no idea about anything, much like a human baby. I wish I had known about this sooner, and that perhaps the sites I went to had gone into a little more detail concerning such important matters.
In any case, griping won't bring Boonie back. Her remains are in a garbage bag, in queue to be taken out tomorrow. Boonie's death seems to have affected me more than most human deaths I've seen; even the ones that went similarly. Boonie looked up at me as if to ask for help, though there was nothing I could do but look back, blankly. It even seemed she realized this.
Boonie has left a lasting impression. She was really intelligent...she got excited and wanted to sit on my hand when I whistled. She tried to eat everything green, even if was the WindowsXP start menu button. She watched, and was fascinated by, TV and any computers that were on (and she chased the mouse cursor, heh). She seemed to only be comfortable when she was sitting in my hand (or Ms_LB's), or clinging to my shirt and sleeping on my chest. She was interested in everything, and made it seem almost as if I had a human baby, heh. I'll really miss her.
Comment