Puff H. Bailey's "new blog" (belated)

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It has fairly recently come to my attention that it's something of a tradition around here for each beardie or family of beardies to have their own thread, so here goes nothing...

Brief review, as I've mentioned most of this in other posts -- Puff was about a year old when we got him from a local rescue around 4 1/2 years ago, and we all seemed to adjust well at first, but the following year was a bad one for all of us...

One story I have never told, because it is a very painful memory for me and one that I am not proud of :oops: :cry: , is that in the summer of 2014, I had what was probably a "nervous breakdown", and became convinced that I could no longer take care of either of our reptiles (we also have a corn snake), nor could I let my husband do it, and I railroaded him into taking them to the local animal control facility on a Friday evening after he came home from work. (No one can talk sense to me when I get like that, and all I could think of was that I had to get them out of here while they were still in good health.) Fortunately, Anchorage has an excellent animal care and control facility. They were there for about 40 hours and my heart was broken. On the following Sunday morning I came to my senses and realized that I was either going to have to give up on them forever, or let my husband help me take care of them. He has always been willing, but I'm a control freak and had been insisting on doing everything myself. So we had a hasty discussion and made plans for me to teach him how to do what I'd been doing and no longer seemed to have the energy to continue to do myself. Then we rushed back down to the animal control facility just as it opened for business in the morning, hoping they would still be there. They were, and we brought them back home. My husband, true to his word, has been doing most of the hard work to care for them ever since, and thanks to him, we still get to keep them and I still get most of the cuddles -- not fair to my husband but he doesn't seem to mind. They are ours for life now, and I have realized that we passed the point of no return when we brought them home. I don't think I had previously realized how much I loved them until that horrible 40 hours when I believed that I would never see them again, and without knowing if they would ever have another home even as good as the one they've had with us.

As I have also said elsewhere, Puff was diagnosed with adenovirus at the end of that year, and was pretty sick for a while, but eventually pulled through, although his appetite and activity level has never come quite back to what it was before that. For the most part, he's been doing fairly well for the last several years, and things have been better.

Latest escapade (just so this won't start out as a total downer):

Recent Saturday afternoon: Puff is pancaked out under the heat &UV lamps in his tank, and "Daddy" sits down at a nearby table with his laptop, all ready for a nice little session on the internet, and plugs in an external tabletop mouse because he prefers that to the hokey little touchpad on the laptop. All of a sudden, Puff goes nuts and starts doing his little dance, the one that usually means, "Get me out of here! I see something I want on the other side of the glass. :blob5: " So "Mommy" (that's me) takes him out and brings him over to the table, because I have my suspicions. Sure enough, he goes after the mouse cable. Probably thinks it's a worm. So Daddy decides to take advantage of the situation and grabs Puff's salad, hoping to use the old bait and switch trick to get the little wannabe carnivore to eat some veggies. Puff is having none of it -- Daddy slips greens in his mouth while he's busy chewing on bugs all the time, and Puff is wise to that. So I put him back in his tank, but Daddy isn't giving up yet, and brings the mouse over and dangles the cable on the other side of the glass, while trying to slip Puff a leaf on the inside of the tank with his other hand. Puff avoids the leaf, but succeeds in banging his nose on the glass trying to get at the mouse. At this point, poor hubby gets the order to cease and desist from his naggy wife, followed by the lecture that we do not want to use inedible, non-digestible objects to trick Puff into eating greens, as I do not want to have to replace a chewed up mouse cable, or worse yet, we definitely do not want Puff swallowing bits of it. It's ok to try to spoon feed him worms using collard greens for the spoon, but not this, and blah, blah, blah...

Bottom line, no permanent damage done to the mouse cable, the bearded dragon, or to Mommy and Daddy's marital relationship. Just another fairly typical Saturday afternoon at the Bailey's... :mrgreen:
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So between my husband's vacation and my own subsequent slump after he went back to work this week, I haven't been doing much more than lurking around here for the last month or so...

Good news about Puff though. He has put on some weight (over 400 grams now, and hopefully still rising), and his hematocrit is back in the normal range. So we seem to have dodged another bullet adenovirus-wise. He has another follow up vet appointment in late July to see how he's doing, and in the meantime we have instructions to just keep doing what we're doing. He's eating about 4x as much as he used to (weekly trips to the pet store for more and more bugs), but whatever it takes. Also having a heck of a time settling down at bedtime -- midnight sun. And still working on a very messy shed. :mrgreen:

Setttling into what is probably going to be the "new normal." :)
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
Seeing the shedding is the real good thing. Gabriel has an RI, I caught it very fast and went to a new exotic vet. So shots as Gabriel doesn't take liquids well, 10 shots over 30 days, 1 every 3 days. Can't remember the drug, but have to give his first one when I get back from walking Bella.

Gabriel hasn't shed, except his eyes, in over 3 years. But he's now shedding most of his body, which he finds annoyed. He's not allowed baths, just drinking water, so will have to put something on his skin to soothe him. Maybe Aloe Vera, will go searching later today.

Did you check out my thread? My dad passed away last Friday, June 15. My mom was there holding hi shad when the nurse came in to clean him. He waited til Mom was out of the room and stopped breathing while having his face cleaned. So we were all prepared, even so was still a shock.

I'm so glad that Puff is doing so much better, so great to get good blood results after working so hard. Give him a snuggle from us all, K/
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So I've been out of the loop for a while -- the weekend before last, my husband and I were invited down to Homer to scatter his father's ashes on their land, and we also got to spend a little time with my niece, who has recently moved down there. We came home with a carload of stuff that my father-in-law wanted us to have, and I've been trying to clean out and donate our old stuff to make room for the newest batch of stuff...

(Too much stuff and not enough house. :roll: )

It was nice to spend some time with family in a beautiful place, even though it was not under the happiest of circumstances this time around. End of a chapter, and we thought that this would be our last summer trip to Homer, but it turns out that there may be more trips in the future after all. Short overnight ones for as long as Puff is still alive though -- I wouldn't board him anywhere again, and it doesn't work to try to take him with us. We made a deal with one of my sisters to come and get him if she didn't get an email saying we got home in one piece on Sunday night.

Puff did fine staying alone for one night -- we left him plenty of greens and some "jelly worms" (Repashy Grub Pie) in his salad, with some of the heat lamps off on the cool side so he could sleep if he wanted to. He's still doing well -- eating massive quantities of roaches and greens, and his weight seems to be holding somewhere between 400-450 grams. We probably need to shop for a digital scale now that we're going to have to monitor his weight and feed him accordingly. The one we have can be off in 20 gram increments depending on which angle you look at it from. He has a follow up appintment with the vet late this month so we'll see what else they recommend.

He continues to be a klutz when it comes to feeding himself, and even though he seems to really like butternut squash all of a sudden, he has a heck of a time getting the little cubes into his mouth by himself, and often has to wait until we "spoon feed" them to him. My husband seems to have mastered the technique and feeds him squash during his bath (so the resultant mess gets mostly washed off and goes down the drain :roll: ), but we're also in the market for some forceps with some sort of safety tips to protect both our fingers and Puff's teeth -- between getting all excited about it and being a klutz, he's been known to miss the squash or the grub pie and chomp the finger. Fortunately, he usually doesn't bite too hard (his jaw muscles are probably still fairly weak) and his teeth aren't terribly sharp, but my husband has a hereditary skin condition that makes his skin thinner than that of a "normal" person, as well as a high susceptibility to infection, so we're still trying to work out the logistics of the "new normal."

Overall, Puff is alert and responsive and extremely interested in anything that even vaguely resembles food ALL the time, even when he should be full -- the little containers that we keep the bugs in ("I know what's in there. Can I have some more?"), computer cables, yarn, etc... ("Ooh -- is that a worm?!?" :blob5: )

Puff's tail still looks like a shedding disaster area, but so far there still doesn't seem to be any serious damage being done. One - scale - at - a - time - and - taking - for - e - ever... :banghead: At least it doesn't seem to be bothering him too much. It seems like shedding happens less often and goes less smoothly the older they get.

Sorry to hear that Gabriel got an RI (on top of everything else), but I hope he's better by now.

Yes, Deb, I was sorry to hear about your father, but it was good that your mother was able to be with him right up to the end. It's always sad even when you know it's going to happen sooner or later. My husband's father passed away the day before he was scheduled to fly down to visit him one last time, but I've got a feeling that was the way he wanted it. He was in a coma and they held the phone up to his ear so we could talk to him the day before, and that turned out to be our last "goodbye." There's evidence that sometimes they can hear your voice and feel your touch, even though they're not able to respond outwardly, so I can only hope that he heard us and knew that we loved him before he left.

Meanwhile, life goes on for those of us who are still here -- almost ready for Puff's "good morning" cuddle... :love5:
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So here it is August 1st, and the weather in Anchorage has turned rainy and a little cooler, right on schedule. I blinked and I missed most of the summer, as usual these past few years.

We had a little technical mishap -- in an attempt to resurrect an old email from an old file-save, we lost all my current ones :banghead:, which was how I was keeping track of all the threads I was following on this website, so I'm kind of starting over from scratch by posting here. Hopefully I'll still get a new email to let me know if anyone posts anything here or to any of the other threads I was following before my email archives went poof... :roll:

As for Puff, we had a really nice visit with the vet this last Saturday -- I think it was the first time he didn't get poked with a needle for some reason or another. His weight is up to 460 grams -- still not back up to where it used to be, but around a 100 gram gain since the spring, so a definite huge improvement. He still has a voracious appetite and has been putting away up to more than 50 medium sized roaches at one sitting 3-4 times a week, and still liking butternut squash and greens as well. He turns his happiest golden color right after he's had a chance to stuff himself with bugs, but no matter how many he's had, he still gives us the look like, "Are you sure you don't want to feed me some more of those?" But hey, I'm not complaining. That crazy appetite may have saved his life. :mrgreen:

His tail still looks like a shedding disaster area, but the vet says it's not as bad as it looks (no serious damage being done), and advises us to just keep soaking him in warm water daily as we've been doing.

I hope all the rest of you and your families and your beardies are enjoying what's left of the summer. :)
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
We've been in the middle of a heat wave, for our area anyway, up to 35C last week. My friend is a roofer and hes had to double dress himself and drink tons of liquids all day. I don't know how he's doing that. I've been sick because of the heat, not even going out during the day much. I have a dog walker and even though I'm home still from work, he walks Bella in the afternoon, it's just too hot. Yesterday was cooler, then warmed up in the afternoon and got hot again.

I had my grandkids over yesterday, they are so full of energy and are misbehaving alot, so I yelled alot yesterday...sigh...I always say I won't, but they always push my buttons as well as my son's. So Eric and I are going to see a therapist (through my company, it's free) for Leo and then he'll start coming with us. Leo has been abandoned twice by his mom and he's very angry about it, so we're seeing the therapist first, then we'll get an appt with Leo included. I have to be there because it's one of my companies benefits. Hopefully we can straighten him out. How do you cope when your mom has just stopped contacting you, 2nd time, and you're only 5 today. Hard to take for an older child but for a 5 year old, like anyone, it's hard to handle. We don't even know where she lives...so sad...

Sorry to go on, but I am SO glad that Puff is feeling better and gaining weight so well. Glad to hear about the doc's advice too. I'd recommend you get some aloe vera and put it in his bath, will help get the shed off. Or you can get some cocoa butter plain (I was told you can buy it at any dollar store, it's called Princess and is in a tube), it's great to put on a dragon's shed overnight and it comes off easier in a couple of days. Vit E works the same, but is expensive to buy. Coconut oil also works, but only put on after lights are out, so he doesn't cook. So there are a few things that work.

I have 2 sound asleep dragons, Castiel went down mid My and Nathaniel went down last week. Castiel is really early this year as last year he went down in August. Cierra and Freya are both getting sleepy but haven't pooped in awhile, so time for pumpkin, once they clean themselves out, they can sleep.

Gabriel is still hanging in, gets another shot this am, tomorrow I'll give him probiotcs and serrepeptase, see if that helps. It's been so hot I've been turning off their lights at 1:30p instead of 4:30p. They're spending all their time in the shade anyway.

So yes, I'm still off work, but finally starting to feel stronger. The heat really makes me to hot, so I'm prone to heat stroke so have to wet myself down all day. Have to start getting back to work, though...sigh...not ill enough for long term insurance. I still have a few weeks to get back so will start working on that when my energy comes back. Luckily I'm still paid 75% of my income and full time the hours that I work, so we'll see how that goes going forward.

Give Puff a big snuggle from all of us and tell him we're really proud on how well he's doing!
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
Wow. That's pretty hot, especially at your latitude. (I had to convert to Fahrenheit because we're pretty backward here in the USA -- we haven't gone metric yet. :roll: ) Here in Anchorage, we complain about it being too "hot" if the temperature gets into the high 70sF (25C for you). Some of us even start "melting" if it goes much above freezing. :wink: Nice take-the-beardies-outside temperature though, as long as you make sure they don't get too hot in direct sunlight. Anyway, I hope it has cooled off for you since last week.

I hope you and Leo and Eric can all learn to cope with the results of their recent past. I have a little great-grand niece who is in a similar situation. Both of her parents have more or less ended up in prison and/or homeless, so one of my nieces (her grandmother) adopted her a couple of years ago, but has now been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Fortunately, her oldest son and his wife, who seem to have their act together better than any of her other children, are planning to take care of the little girl after her grandmother is gone. The poor little thing is only about 3 years old, if I remember correctly -- cute as all get out the last time I saw her (which isn't very often), but a major handful with understandable serious separation anxiety and all kinds of behavior problems. Her uncle and his wife will have their hands full with her, but thank God they're willing, otherwise she'd probably have ended up in foster care. Anyway, I hope you and Eric can find a good therapist and help Leo cope with the results of what his mother has put him through.

Puff is probably not out of the woods yet, especially since the local pet stores are having a heck of a time keeping live bugs in stock around here lately. We're also giving him Repashy Grup Pie, and the vet said he can have pinkie mice since he needs to gain weight. That helps, because we can stock up and keep them frozen so they have a longer shelf life and he has something to eat besides the grub pie, in case we can't get the live bugs for a while. He also still likes the squash, which probably gives him a few more calories than the greens, so hopefully we're covered. He likes the pinkie mice too -- we flavored them with Repashy Grub Pie the first few times, something we already knew he likes the taste of, but now all we have to do is defrost them in warm water and he eats them with no complaints. Voracious little omnivore. :mrgreen:

We tried coconut oil on his tail (after his bath in the evening just before bedtime) and it didn't seem to help much. Our reptile vet is of the opinion that putting oil on it isn't a very good idea, so I might have to look into the aloe vera thing, if I can find something water-based. It might just take time -- seems to me that the older a beardie gets, the more difficult the sheds get. It used to come off in nice big pieces when he was only a couple of years old, but the vet has always warned me that bearded dragons are not like snakes when they shed, and don't expect it to all come off in once piece all at once.

Puff has never been much into brumating, and I'm especially glad for that this year, because I don't think he can afford to go to sleep and not eat for several months. If he shows any signs of trying it for the first time in his life, I plan to keep the lights on longer to see if I can trick him into thinking it's still summer so he can keep eating. It will be kind of hard to keep up that deception around here in the middle of the winter though. He'll be able to see that there's nothing but darkness outside the window for all but a few hours in the middle of the day come December... :sleepy2:

It's funny that your beardies seem to want to sleep when it's been so hot at your place. Maybe it's more about the light than the heat? Or stay in the shade and sleep when it's too hot? We're losing over 5 minutes a day now at our latitude, so I suppose that your days are getting noticeably shorter by now too.

I can relate to being in between not being sick enough to be on "disability insurance" (sounds like the Canadian version is not too much different from the USA version) but still not being able to work, although for different reasons. I'm lucky that my husband has been able to become the sole breadwinner for both of us (and the beardie, who has definitely been spending his share in food and vet bills for the past several months) and that we've been able to live on his salary, for the most part, as long as we're careful. And I'm finally getting old enough to start calling myself "retired" instead of "unemployed" or "disabled." :roll: I hope you can work things out so that you can have enough to live on without having to work when you're not up to it, with whatever kinds of bureaucratic hoops you have to jump through to get there...

It looks like it's going to be sunny and nice here today for a change (we've been getting lots of rain lately, as usual for August here), and Puff's "good morning" cuddle is due in a couple of hours. :love5:

(Oops. Another TLDR :oops: )
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I've just gotten to pinkie mice and I had to butt in. I hate them, they are a big mound of fat to a dragon and hard to digest I'd really research as some give their dragons pinkies but then I never hear how it affects them as seniors.

Now I'll go read the rest. Sorry, pinkie mice just cause an alarm to go off in my head :roll: but that's how I roll with dragon health.

So that said, I'm so glad he's doing better. If you want to plump him up, then just give him mix along with bugs and greens. It's a good filler in for whatever they don't get but need from their regular food. Try that first before a pinkie mouse, k?

So Leo had his party, even though when he woke up, he was very disappointed that he didn't get gifts right away at breakfast. We'd been involved in my dad's death and celebration of life, so got behind on his birthday. So got it all organized and Traci got a chocolate cake and they were both happy. Safara is getting that it's Leo's birthday, not hers, but when it's hers, it'll be like Leo's only for a girl. (She's a very girly girl LOL.) I have some recent pictures, not sure if you've seen them.

11887-2789696977.jpg
Leo is now 5 and Safara will be 4 on Oct 10, time is sure going fast!

So Gabriel is still battling his RI, he gets another shot today, then seeing vet on Sat am, my original vet, not the 2nd one I took him to. (I'm very lucky, I have 2 great vets within 1/2 hr drive.) as I want my original vet to get the story on his chart. Plus she's cheaper and gives me 10% discount on everything, she was just not in at the time Gabriel got sick. I'll keep you posted.

I'm so very glad Puff is doing so much better, that's why pinkie mice bother me, they're normally used for gravid females that have finished laying (they lost of upwards of 100g per lay). That's the best use for them. So mix would be better just added.

Castiel, Nathaniel and now Cierra are already brumating. Castiel went down mid May, Nathaniel a month ago and Cierra last week. So they're all up for baths today & tomorrow, then they'll go back to sleep.

Freya is now 17 1/2" long, I just don't know how old she is. She's got no parasites left and Cierra doesn't either. Castiel had 2 doses of meds when he woke up, but he was clear when he went to sleep. As for Freya, she's still a really little dragon, though not as small as she was in January. I have pics, I'll get them updated on my thread tomorrow, possibly.

And I'm not working at all right now, still on short term, have 6 mo to get back full time in total, but they normally want you to apply for long term, which will be a waste of $. So I'll have to let them know I need something to lean back on while working, that way I won't get that awful pain in my back along the bra line. I'll keep working on it.

I did get approved for one part of my retirement benefits through the gov't, so that will add over $1000 to my monthly salary...sigh...I won't be broke anymore and will get about the same amount when I officially retire at 65.

I'll get back later, k?
Have to get dragons done...
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
Don't panic too much about the pinkies -- we're not using them as a staple. Just a supplement/treat once in a while. He likes them and it doesn't seem to be causing him any problems. Nice healthy poops lately. His weight is still fluctuating, but at least staying above 400 grams, usually closer to 450. This might turn out to be the "new normal."

My husband was worried last night because he wouldn't eat the last couple of roaches after a huge meal, but I showed him the little round belly and explained, "He's full. This is what "full" looks like..."

Your grandkids are really cute -- glad they had a nice party. And yeah, they grow up really fast when you're not looking, don't they?

Gabriel is a good example of that little saying, "Life's not fair, but it's still good." Seems really unfair that he survived an aneurysm and now he has to deal with a respiratory infection. :(

So you've got about half your beardies asleep -- hopefully Puff won't get any ideas about brumating this year -- he hasn't in the past. Just usually eats a little less, wakes up a little later, and goes to sleep for the night a little earlier during the winter. I'm sure he can tell that there's less and less light coming in the windows even though we keep his lamps on for 12 hours a day year round. It's been cooler and rainy lately -- typical for Anchorage in August. And we're now losing over 5 1/2 minutes of daylight every day.

I hope you can work things out so that you have enough to live on when you finally get to retire. I've got to deal with that next year when I turn 62 -- "minimum retirement age." But my benefit will be higher if I can hold out till I'm 65 or 70, so if my husband is still earning enough for us to live on, I'll wait it out. We've got someone who will help us run the numbers when the time comes.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I'm so glad Puff is doing so well, sometimes, when they get older, they lose weight like he did and settle at a different weight. As long as he's eating and if he doesn't have a problem with pinkies, then for sure let him have 1, see if it helps his energy.

Gabriel is still very sick, he went back to my vet on Saturday and she said she couldn't hear his hear, so we got an xray done and sure enough, he's got a pocket of fluid covering his heart. So the meds for this get injected into superworms, 5 units (I got diabetic needles) every worm for 8 worms every morning. He's already got his colouring back, his black beard is almost gone, so only 3 days and he's feeling better. My vet wanted early morning and later in the day, but I told her I'm feeling better and will be going back to work, so can only give him the dose in the am. So he gets 40 units every morning in the form of superworms, which he loves and eats right down. Now I'm waiting for another antibiotic for the RI that he still has, but it's mucous, which is worse because even if it's in his mouth, it's too thick to dribble out, so that has to be cleared. He's been on antibiotic shots for 2 months and he's not better, in fact he's worse. My vet said now that he's on the heart meds and they're working for him, he'll be stronger to get rid of the RI. I've never dealt with an RI before but because of what people have written on the forums for dragons, I was able to get him to another vet right away to try to clear it up. So I'm hoping that this next antibiotic, on top of the heart meds, will do the trick and he'll be healed. I can only hope!

Thanks for enjoying the pics of my grandkids, being off work I've seen alot of them. They are both 2 very high energy, healthy kids and they are constantly in trouble. If it's not Safara beating Leo, it's Leo beating Safara. I'm glad it's my son who takes care of them because I can only have them for a few hours and have to give them back. I love them so much, but they know how to push every button they have to get me yelling, then they complain about it. Typical kids :love5:

So other than trying to get back to work (I'm in the hands of a team of husband/wife internists and they are both very good. They did some blood tests that I didn't understand. So one was to determine my immune system and the other was for inflammation. So I saw the wife yesterday and she told me she doesn't think I have polymyalgia rhematica, a very painful disease, cousin to Fibro. And she thinks I have Fibro, even though I've been to two rheumatologists and they both said I didn't have it. But it would explain the flares in my arms. She also said that the disease I have, arthritis and diabetes will cause big fatigue problems. I told her I was thinking about long term, but realized I wasn't sick enough. I can still walk a football field. On good days, I can run a block or two. So there's no way I'd be approved. So instead I'm going back to work and retiring in 2 1/2 years, Dec 1, 2020. So I ordered a gov't pension early, to help as I"m ALWAYS broke. If my son runs out of food, then I help as much as I can. He has a really low income, $1192 monthly and his rent is $800, plus $20 for parking spot, as he uses my car to get the kids to the other grandparents. It's the least I can do. He doesn't get it often and not for long.

Sorry to ramble on. So we buried my dad's ashes on Aug 7 and my mom broke down. She was fine with the golf games in his honour, sprinkling some of his ashes all over the 18 holes of the golf course he was a member of for 35 years. He played almost daily until he couldn't anymore, so he retired from the game at 90, last summer. He also gave up driving and told my mom she needed practice so she could drive him around. Then he had the strokes. So I'm glad we were able to honour my dad's memory. The day after the golf game (lasted 4 1/2 hours! and I walked all the way from hole#1 to hole#18. The next day we had his celebration of life and that all went very well. We all broke up here and there during the afternoon. My son and his girlfriend Traci came, too, so did alot of dad's friends that he'd had for years and mom's friends, too. So he's at peace now and he'll be with us all always. But mostly with my mom. I feel him all the time.

So now I have to get better and get back to work, even if I don't want to, it's necessary to keep my pension contributions going. I know it'll go fast, I remember telling a friend, seemed not too long ago, that I had 5 years left. I just can't wait, freedom for me. I'll have 4 pensions, 3 from Canada and 1 from SS. I apply for that one the month before I retire, I have to go to the USA to get my application for my SS acct done, then see if they'll approve the pension for me. It will mean I don't have to work at all.

I'm glad you have someone to help you with your finances, as they can get overwhelming. I work in that business, as I call out to people who are behind on their bill and have scripts for every scenario. I've done this work at the bank for 26 years and before that at my business for 5 years before it failed. So I'll be glad to be done with that business and just concentrate on my family, including my babies.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
I've also used superworms as a vehicle for meds and supplements -- used to spray them with liquid calcium and then roll them in Reptivite or whatever we were giving him at the time. Puff would probably eat just about anything if I put it on a superworm. :mrgreen:

I hope Gabriel gets better -- he's had enough to deal with and deserves some good health for a change.

As I understand it, fibromyalgia is kind of an elusive disease -- hard to diagnose and treat. I hope they figure out something that works for you.

It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that your son's rent is too high for his income. I hope he can get some better help or a better job or cheaper rent or whatever it takes.

It sounds like you have a stressful job -- no wonder you're counting the days to retirement. So down to 2 1/2 years now -- I remember when it was more than 3.

We don't actually have a financial adviser -- she's there to help with things like health insurance and social security -- anything that involves dealing with government agencies and jumping through bureaucratic hoops. (I have a pathological aversion to red tape. :roll: ) My husband's employer referred us to her when he hired on there and we found out that we couldn't afford to put me on his health insurance, so I have "Obamacare," just to avoid the tax penalty. Otherwise, I have come to the conclusion that professional health care is a luxury that I can't afford, especially since it usually tends to do me more harm than good anyway. Luckily, I've been reasonably healthy most of my life, except for chronic stuff that I can live with and that they can't do much of anything about anyway, but I suppose that old age is going to catch up with me one way or the other sooner or later.

Meanwhile, I'll just cuddle our beardie and try not to worry too much about things I don't have much control over.
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
That's how I feel, too, what I can't control, well I just don't worry about it. Too stressful. So I start back to work on Monday, just 1/2 day, same Tues, then Wed off, then maybe Thurs but not Friday, too much to start. It's going to take awhile to get back to work, probably a month or so, if I go back too fast, I get sick again. I'm not hardly getting these weird flares, so glad that's going away, it was painful while it lasted and very tiring. I was asleep not much past 9p last night, so tired from doing wash, I could hardly see. So that's the fatigue I have to deal with, it's been haunting for the last 20 years on and off and no doc has come up with a reason for it yet. So I'm seeing an internist, husband and wife team, so they're taking tests that show autoimmune (I'm just on the very high normal on that test) and inflammation, which showed hardly any, so that's good. I get inflammation on my back when it's out, but that's about it, a bit where I have osteo in my hips, but otherwise no pain from that. My pain is from my back & neck, to do with the motorcycle accident I had at 18. That is going to affect me the rest of my life as I have two bulging discs that cause all the trouble, that's why I see my chiro every week. She'd like me to come in every 2 weeks, but within 2 days of missing a session, I can't move for the pain, so I told her has to be every week to keep me sane and not taking alot of codeine (my pain pill). I'm going to get some CBD drops soon to see if that helps the pain or not, it's supposed to.

So I'm really hoping the new worm this am with the new antibiotic starts to help him because he still has mucous in his mouth every morning.

I'll keep you posted, I haven't posted on my thread, so I'll do that soon. Don't ever seem to have the time.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
I guess I'm not the only one having a hard time finding enough energy to do anything these days, although theoretically I should have plenty of time...

So Puff's weight appears to be back up above 500 grams, if my husband read the hokey little scale correctly. I was really surprised and hoping it's not too good to be true. :blob5: We still haven't had a chance to go shopping for a digital scale. He looks better too, except for the ongoing shabby shedding. And his appetite for veggies seems to have gone south -- not hungry enough to eat anything that's available anymore. Back to normal. :roll: At least he still seems to like butternut squash, but he's still too klutzy to eat it himself -- "Daddy" has to feed it to him.

I hope Gabriel is feeling better. I also hope the others are staying healthy while they sleep.
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So our one major accomplishment over the holiday weekend was the purchase of a new digital scale for Puff. :blob5: And oh yeah, my husband got the storm windows back on so we're more or less ready for winter, although the weather's been nice here this week. Probably summer's last gasp...

Puff weighed 510 grams on the old scale and 529 grams on the new scale as of this last Saturday. :D I don't consider the difference particularly significant since the old scale weighs in 20 gram increments and it can be off by at least that much or more depending on which angle you look at it from. Digital is going to be so much easier. So Puff appears to have fully recovered from his latest adenovirus flare-up or whatever it was. We will be monitoring his weight weekly now so that we don't get blindsided by that sort of thing again.

Today he went "downstairs" for a little while, stared at his salad, and pushed it around a little bit, but I didn't see him actually eat any. Now he's halfway back up the ramp to his basking platform and halfway zoned out. Definitely back to "normal." He really doesn't like greens unless he's mortally hungry. :roll: Still scarfing up crickets and roaches with much enthusiasm, and a little squash if "Daddy" feeds it to him. :mrgreen:
 

sweetiepie9

BD.org Sicko
Retired Moderator
I'm so glad Puff has gained that much and is keeping it on, so good to hear.

Gabriel is not so lucky, he's still has mucous in his mouth and he's almost finished his 3rd round of RI meds. He seems fine, breathing fine, eating fine, but his belly is bloated (from swallowing the mucous) and he's not pooping like he used to, so I'm not sure what's going on. At least I'll have $ when I see the vet, may need another xray to check, but not feeding him this time, as did last time and his stomach was so big it covered his lungs. So he'll get fed day after instead. I have a friend who had a dragon with an RI, and it took 5 months to get rid of it, so I'm hopeful Gabriel will get through this, too.

We're having another heat wave & I'm sorry, I don't use metric unless I have to. I was taught Imperial measures and that's still what I use. Metric just frustrates me. So everything in my house is not metric LOL And I also got a cell phone for the first time at 62! And I'm really enjoying this texting, too. Makes it easy to reach my sister :D
 

SHBailey

Gray-bearded Member
Original Poster
So Puff is still managing to maintain his recent weight gain, and we're still managing to obtain enough bugs to feed him as much as he seems to want, although the local supply has been iffy at best.

Major frustration with the UV lamps -- had another one short out (not the first time), and the spare that I'd had for several months turned out to be DOA -- I should have checked it when it first arrived (thought I'd learned my lesson about that, but apparently I'd made the same mistake again), because now it's probably out of warranty. These things are poorly designed and poorly packaged. :banghead: I found a different one on line and ordered it, and in the meantime we're limping along with "don't-jiggle-the-cord-or-it-will-go-off" and keeping an old T8 handy (better than nothing just in case) until the new one arrives and see if it will work any better. My husband plans to take one of the old fixtures apart and see if he can fix the short (in his non-existent spare time), and we're considering calling the manufacturer to see if they'll make good on the one that never even worked at all, whenever one or the other of us has the time and/or the energy, but in the meantime we're just trying to make sure that Puff is getting some decent UV. With everything else he's been through, the last thing he needs is to get MBD. Fortunately, his latest X-Rays and blood tests showed that his little skeleton is in good shape, as well as his calcium levels.

Respiratory infections can take a long time to clear up, for humans and beardies both, so I hope Gabriel doesn't get any worse even if it takes him a while to get better.

You're doing better than me -- I flunked cell phone at 61. I finally agreed to let my husband get me one, but I didn't get along with it at all. :banghead: At least he managed to transfer the time we'd put on it over to his other cell phone so that at least some of the money we spent on it didn't completely go to waste. But as for metric, I wish the USA had switched over to the metric system a long time ago -- it's way easier than the English system once you get used to it -- everything is in multiples of 10 so when you want to convert, all you have to do is move the decimal -- in the long run it makes the math a whole lot easier. I do admit that it would take some getting used to for me too though, since I grew up thinking in Fahrenheit instead of Centigrade, miles instead of kilometers, etc.

I can communicate with one of my sisters via email, but the other one doesn't have internet access so we still have to use the phone (land line) and snailmail. :wink:
 
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I miss you so much, Amaris 💔
What is a quick way to warm up a cold beardie? His heating element went out overnight and now he's very cold.
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i feel so sad reading your about me 😢
Clapton is acclimating okay I think. He's quick as lightning so I'm not sure how much I should bring him out of his house yet. He's not at all interested in his salad though. I wonder if I should change what I'm giving him. Least he's eating his crickets.

Things to do:
Buy calcium powder
Material to raise surface for basking spot
Scenery decals for back of tank

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