I just lost Wiz, my one year old beardie to lightning bug toxicity in the perfect storm of circumstances. This is going to be a loooong explanation, but I need to get it out. There will be a Tl;dr at the end.
It all started when I first rescued Wiz. Our house is always cold, so I set him up in the warmest room in the house which happened to be a very low traffic room. Wiz is (was) a sociable guy and this stressed him out, so I moved him into the living room (aka the coldest room in the house. To supplement this, I removed the lid from his tank to lower the heat lamp a tad (the lid is one of those PITA ones with plastic going through the center so I couldn't rest the light on it). What could possibly go wrong? It's not like we have a cat...
Fast forward to a few weeks ago: we rescued a kitten from the middle of the road. Still no issue between him and Wiz because the kitten was confined to a play pin.
Wiz turned one and he stubbornly refused veggies, so it was time for some tough love. This week, I'd decided to wait him out and only feed a few crickets every other day to get him hungry.
Well, five days ago the kitten goes to the vet for vomiting, gets treated for parasites and comes home... Well, July 3rd (five days later) he takes a sudden turn for the worst (the kitten, not Wiz). This is the same day that I planned on going to Nashville to buy some ingredients from the ethnic market which ends up taking most of the day. We get home at 5 to take the kitten to the vet...
He gets hospitalized and we come back home around 7. I'm so distraught over the kitten that I don't really pay any attention to Wiz. My brother comments on his beard being black and I just sort of shrug it off.
Well, at about 10, I go to feed Wiz and I notice he's fallen off his basking rock and is pale (and a black beard). On closer inspection, his eyes had sunk in, wasn't moving, and he was salivating profusely.
I instantly go into meltdown mode (I have Aspergers), but I knew his symptoms matched poisoning. Of course, the exotics vet is closed and the emergency vet doesn't do reptiles... And of course, we don't have activated charcoal when we need it, so I send my dad out to go find some...
Apparently nobody sells activated charcoal at 10pm; not Walmart, not Kroger, and our local Walgreens isn't 24 hrs. So I look up how to make it, which was relatively simple, but we needed charcoal and the only brand they had was all cheap and chemical-y.
Wiz was in bad shape, so I figured we were damned if we do and damned if we don't, so I went for it... And it did nothing. He was too far gone, though he faught hard. I resuscitated him twice, but I figured by the third time it was time to let him go.
My best guess is that a lightning bug flew into the house (they've been thick this year), flew into his tank, and the laziest hunter, Wiz, who won't go after anything unless it's an inch from his mouth, was hungry enough from the fasting to catch it... And I was too preoccupied with the kitten to notice his symptoms until it was too late.
Tl;dr - Buy activated charcoal before you need it and keep the damned lid of your tank on because reptile CPR sucks.
It all started when I first rescued Wiz. Our house is always cold, so I set him up in the warmest room in the house which happened to be a very low traffic room. Wiz is (was) a sociable guy and this stressed him out, so I moved him into the living room (aka the coldest room in the house. To supplement this, I removed the lid from his tank to lower the heat lamp a tad (the lid is one of those PITA ones with plastic going through the center so I couldn't rest the light on it). What could possibly go wrong? It's not like we have a cat...
Fast forward to a few weeks ago: we rescued a kitten from the middle of the road. Still no issue between him and Wiz because the kitten was confined to a play pin.
Wiz turned one and he stubbornly refused veggies, so it was time for some tough love. This week, I'd decided to wait him out and only feed a few crickets every other day to get him hungry.
Well, five days ago the kitten goes to the vet for vomiting, gets treated for parasites and comes home... Well, July 3rd (five days later) he takes a sudden turn for the worst (the kitten, not Wiz). This is the same day that I planned on going to Nashville to buy some ingredients from the ethnic market which ends up taking most of the day. We get home at 5 to take the kitten to the vet...
He gets hospitalized and we come back home around 7. I'm so distraught over the kitten that I don't really pay any attention to Wiz. My brother comments on his beard being black and I just sort of shrug it off.
Well, at about 10, I go to feed Wiz and I notice he's fallen off his basking rock and is pale (and a black beard). On closer inspection, his eyes had sunk in, wasn't moving, and he was salivating profusely.
I instantly go into meltdown mode (I have Aspergers), but I knew his symptoms matched poisoning. Of course, the exotics vet is closed and the emergency vet doesn't do reptiles... And of course, we don't have activated charcoal when we need it, so I send my dad out to go find some...
Apparently nobody sells activated charcoal at 10pm; not Walmart, not Kroger, and our local Walgreens isn't 24 hrs. So I look up how to make it, which was relatively simple, but we needed charcoal and the only brand they had was all cheap and chemical-y.
Wiz was in bad shape, so I figured we were damned if we do and damned if we don't, so I went for it... And it did nothing. He was too far gone, though he faught hard. I resuscitated him twice, but I figured by the third time it was time to let him go.
My best guess is that a lightning bug flew into the house (they've been thick this year), flew into his tank, and the laziest hunter, Wiz, who won't go after anything unless it's an inch from his mouth, was hungry enough from the fasting to catch it... And I was too preoccupied with the kitten to notice his symptoms until it was too late.
Tl;dr - Buy activated charcoal before you need it and keep the damned lid of your tank on because reptile CPR sucks.
