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Rest in Peace, Squishy, my beloved ball python girl.
14 years ago
Squishy my ball python recently contracted pneumonia. With the aid of injected anti-biotics, she's been fighting it for around a month or more. Her body finally gave in yesterday, bless her heart, and she died in daddy's arms.
I desperately want to have an autopsy/necropsy performed. I have a few reasons; I want to find out what caused her to develop pneumonia in the first place in addition to what I should be doing differently with my snakes. It could potentially tell me if there was a factor that contributed to her state that was contagious to my other reptiles like a bacteria or parasite, allowing me to preempt it and potentially -save- them from a similar fate. Lastly, though it may be difficult to understand, closure. There are a couple of frustrating and upsetting factors behind her death (besides the fact that she's dead) and it would make me feel a lot better to know for sure what happened, and hypothetically allow me to make the situation a little bit "righter".
I do not currently have enough money to pay for this vet bill, with or without the necropsy. Squishy's body is currently sitting in a refrigerator at the vet's office, and I have until tomorrow (Monday, March 13) to tell them what to do, otherwise she is just a body sitting there....and I don't even know for sure whether they'll give it back if I don't arrange payment for that final bill....even though they pretty much didn't do anything besides hook her up to something to check for a pulse. They could have asked for upwards of 1000 dollars in bills if I'd let them do any emergency efforts, and it was already very likely that she was beyond coming back.
The vet's office does NOT accept payment plans, but they did tell me that they accept payment from a company that basically sells you a credit card to pay for the vet bill, then you owe them money. With the necropsy, the bill would be barely over the financial threshold ($300) that allows me to take out the line of credit without interest for 6 months, and I know it won't take me more than a month to make enough money to pay the bill off. Unfortunately, my own credit is not good enough and I'd have to find a cosigner in order to do it.
Up until the moment Squishy started choking, I'd been "getting in to it with my mother." When I realized what was going on with Squishy, I immediately started yelling out to everyone in the house (my mother and sister) that she was dying. I tried everything...even forcing a little air back in to her lungs with my mouth through the mucus that had completely blocked off her airway causing her to choke. When I decided it was time to go to the vets, I tried begging my mom to take me, holding out the snake in front of me as she convulsed, and my mom was so caught up thinking about whatever it was that she was angry at me about that she refused and left me there at the house while she went out to do whatever she had planned. I fought with my sister and convinced her to take her. She didn't want to because she was being squeamish. I couldn't drive because I had to hold on to the snake because she was flailing her body around. By the time I'd gotten to the vets, she wasn't showing any signs of life. She didn't help with the initial vet bill when she first fell ill and won't even talk to me right now because (you guessed it) she's mad at me, but she did let me know that she thinks getting a necropsy is stupid, so I don't expect any change.
As for my dad, I -did- talk to him about it but he won't do anything either. This INFURIATES me, because when I originally brought Squishy in to the vet, I was told that a sudden drop of temperature was a likely cause of her condition. My dad recently took the heater out of my room because he has a high electricity bill. That occurred only a week or so before Squishy started wheezing. I explained all that to my dad when it all first happened and I had to take her in, and he didn't agree to help at all with the bill. Nothing. I didn't have the money then either, but I got lucky and got a check in the mail (from a warranty on my mp3 player that had recently broke and I'd sent in) literally the day before the appointment was scheduled. That appointment was about 140 dollars in total, and I think the check I got was for 170. Essentially, I admit to holding him indirectly responsible for her death, and feel that even though I can't know for sure (without the necropsy) that that's what caused it, he should be sympathetic to the situation and more willing to help me figure something out.
Now, my humble desperate plea: I am looking for someone who is either:
a) willing to cosign the line of credit, and I am trying to offer up to about 100 dollars up payed directly to the person who lends their name, and I'd still owe the rest of the money to the vets directly, and assuming I pay everything off, the 100 dollars would hopefully make up for the risk you'd be taking.
or b) possibly willing to lend me money any amount of money directly to help pay for the vet bill
I'm more than happy to sign a contract to you for either of these.
If you think you can help or might have an idea, please don't hesitate to call me at 858-692-5118 and if that doesn't go through which it might not, please be sure to leave a voicemail and then you can contact me on facebook (Brooks Buncher). I'll be logged in 24/7 until something happens...
I desperately want to have an autopsy/necropsy performed. I have a few reasons; I want to find out what caused her to develop pneumonia in the first place in addition to what I should be doing differently with my snakes. It could potentially tell me if there was a factor that contributed to her state that was contagious to my other reptiles like a bacteria or parasite, allowing me to preempt it and potentially -save- them from a similar fate. Lastly, though it may be difficult to understand, closure. There are a couple of frustrating and upsetting factors behind her death (besides the fact that she's dead) and it would make me feel a lot better to know for sure what happened, and hypothetically allow me to make the situation a little bit "righter".
I do not currently have enough money to pay for this vet bill, with or without the necropsy. Squishy's body is currently sitting in a refrigerator at the vet's office, and I have until tomorrow (Monday, March 13) to tell them what to do, otherwise she is just a body sitting there....and I don't even know for sure whether they'll give it back if I don't arrange payment for that final bill....even though they pretty much didn't do anything besides hook her up to something to check for a pulse. They could have asked for upwards of 1000 dollars in bills if I'd let them do any emergency efforts, and it was already very likely that she was beyond coming back.
The vet's office does NOT accept payment plans, but they did tell me that they accept payment from a company that basically sells you a credit card to pay for the vet bill, then you owe them money. With the necropsy, the bill would be barely over the financial threshold ($300) that allows me to take out the line of credit without interest for 6 months, and I know it won't take me more than a month to make enough money to pay the bill off. Unfortunately, my own credit is not good enough and I'd have to find a cosigner in order to do it.
Up until the moment Squishy started choking, I'd been "getting in to it with my mother." When I realized what was going on with Squishy, I immediately started yelling out to everyone in the house (my mother and sister) that she was dying. I tried everything...even forcing a little air back in to her lungs with my mouth through the mucus that had completely blocked off her airway causing her to choke. When I decided it was time to go to the vets, I tried begging my mom to take me, holding out the snake in front of me as she convulsed, and my mom was so caught up thinking about whatever it was that she was angry at me about that she refused and left me there at the house while she went out to do whatever she had planned. I fought with my sister and convinced her to take her. She didn't want to because she was being squeamish. I couldn't drive because I had to hold on to the snake because she was flailing her body around. By the time I'd gotten to the vets, she wasn't showing any signs of life. She didn't help with the initial vet bill when she first fell ill and won't even talk to me right now because (you guessed it) she's mad at me, but she did let me know that she thinks getting a necropsy is stupid, so I don't expect any change.
As for my dad, I -did- talk to him about it but he won't do anything either. This INFURIATES me, because when I originally brought Squishy in to the vet, I was told that a sudden drop of temperature was a likely cause of her condition. My dad recently took the heater out of my room because he has a high electricity bill. That occurred only a week or so before Squishy started wheezing. I explained all that to my dad when it all first happened and I had to take her in, and he didn't agree to help at all with the bill. Nothing. I didn't have the money then either, but I got lucky and got a check in the mail (from a warranty on my mp3 player that had recently broke and I'd sent in) literally the day before the appointment was scheduled. That appointment was about 140 dollars in total, and I think the check I got was for 170. Essentially, I admit to holding him indirectly responsible for her death, and feel that even though I can't know for sure (without the necropsy) that that's what caused it, he should be sympathetic to the situation and more willing to help me figure something out.
Now, my humble desperate plea: I am looking for someone who is either:
a) willing to cosign the line of credit, and I am trying to offer up to about 100 dollars up payed directly to the person who lends their name, and I'd still owe the rest of the money to the vets directly, and assuming I pay everything off, the 100 dollars would hopefully make up for the risk you'd be taking.
or b) possibly willing to lend me money any amount of money directly to help pay for the vet bill
I'm more than happy to sign a contract to you for either of these.
If you think you can help or might have an idea, please don't hesitate to call me at 858-692-5118 and if that doesn't go through which it might not, please be sure to leave a voicemail and then you can contact me on facebook (Brooks Buncher). I'll be logged in 24/7 until something happens...
As for you Diz, -hugz-
I'm in pretty dire financial straights myself, works slowed down and I've been off, going on the 3rd week now. But do you have paypal? I think I have $23someon dollars in there I can forward to you.
R.I.P. Squishy.
However, this doesn't sound like your typical pneumonia case. Respiratory infections often take a very long time to cause death, not just a month or so. I'd be curious to know what her other symptoms were, especially since she was convulsing at the end. I'm leaning toward IBD. :/ Resistant RIs can be a sign of it, and IBD takes ball pythons quickly.
If not that, then I'd need to know more about her care during the RI. Were you soaking her frequently? Some snakes will actually breath more liquid into their lungs during a soak, even though the recommend soaks while on the antibiotic amikacin for example. It can make things worse and essentially cause drowning. While on antibiotics food should have been withheld and her temps increased to between 88-95 or so. With RIs you basically want to give your snake a fever as it helps them fight the infection.
My big boa Onyxia has been dealing with pneumonia ever since I got her almost a year ago, and only now is she finally getting better (three different medications, two vet visits, and a lot of trial and error!).
If you have any other questions let me know. Again, I'm really sorry for your loss, but I'd love to help you figure out what happened even if I can't help financially.
I don't know that I can get a "histopathology" report done on her now that her body has already been frozen...maybe I could, but either way it's still a -lot- more money to spend (170-something) and I do have an identified strongly possible cause of her falling ill according to the vet; the heater being removed from my room. I want to mention that her cage is fairly large and I only had her one big ceramic heater and didn't have the money to buy a new heating pad after my last one crapped out.
I'd love to be able to have it done, but I really doubt I'm going to get that much more money lent to me. I currently have about half of it in cash, and that's literally all the money I have and neither of my parents support me in regards to my reptiles, and I'm still unemployed (and searching).
*breathes*
Anyway, hit me up on instant messenger, I'm sure I have you on something.