Campbell Jane *Very Sad News*

[frog]

Sandi, Im in total awe. You did so great with her! I can't believe the difference in her! :shock:

Sara

 

[blondie098]

Wow, Sandi -- she is getting sooooo beautiful! What a diff, she looks like a whole different beardie! (Crash, quit peeking, you have Xena, and besides, Ruben is smitten with CJ)

 

[Elora]

holy smokes seeing those 2 pictures together is amazing. I cant belive how dirty she was. Look at that white she has now!! :shock:

 

[amylee159]

Oh my gosh!!! I kept having to look back and forth between the two pics!! I can't believe the difference!!!

 

[blondie098]

PSSSSST - Campbell Jane! Have to hurry before they find me on the computer... you can do the shed thing, pretty girl, don't worry about looking freaky for a couple days... thought I'd send you a picture to show you how my banana peel trick worked a couple weeks ago... It doesn't hurt, it just looks bad:

I see Ruben has his eye on you, so c'mon, wow him and show him how gorgeous you really are :lol: I'll bet your mommy will give you some extra nummy treats! Better go, I hear someone coming!
(Crash -< -<)

 

[Jasper's Mom]

He he... love the banana peel! I wish Cam would peel like that.

She's being difficult at the moment. She's stopped pooping again - it's been a week now. I've been giving her lactulose and extra water, but nothing's happening. She's back on the motility drugs for another few days to get things going again. I'm worried that her gut stasis is never going to get better. Is it possible for stasis to persist long term? If necessary I will syringe feed her every day for the rest of her life, but obviously I would rather that she eat on her own. She really enjoys those hornworms - it would be nice if she could eat them.

 

[Jasper's Mom]

Im getting suspicious now...
I keep finding tiny holiday brochures all over and my homepage keeps mysteriously being set to animal shipping to canada :roll:

Shipping??? No no... Mr. Ruben must travel first class. I will arrange for a limo to pick him up at the airport. :mrgreen:

 

[Jasper's Mom]

I just spoke to my vet and he recommended putting her back on the motility drugs for 5 days. They got her moving last time, so hopefully they will help again. I don't know what to do though. It seems like everytime I take her off the slurry, her little GI system shuts down. :?

 

[blondie098]

Oh, Sandi -- she's on all of our minds (and in all of our hearts)! Our family is thinking good thoughts and hoping she gets better soon, you have done such wonders with this beautiful little soul. She knows she is in good hands, and I'm sure Jasper is whispering in her ear to get better!

 

[dolcedragon]

Give her time Sandi, I really do think she'll eventually eat all on her own. Her system may never be totally normal, she may take a little longer to get things worked out, but I think she'll be able to do it by herself. She looks fantastic. Stop worrying your Mom, CJ!!

 

[Jasper's Mom]

Wow... unexpected news from the vet. If you didn't see my thread in Beardie ER, Cam had some sort of seizure last night and scared the you-know-what out of me. And of course she hasn't been pooping. So I took her in to the clinic today for an exam. First, the vet stuck a flexible, lubed up tube where the sun don't shine to make her poop. After a few seconds, this enormous, rock-hard urate came shooting out of her and hit the exam table with an audible THWACK! The thing was over an inch long! :shock: That's why she wasn't pooping - she had a "cork" in her. Then she pooped and got it all out of her system. The vet was surprised that her urates were so hard - he said the usual causes for that are dehydration and too much calcium. Well I know she's not dehydrated because I give her water from the syringe every day, and I've only been giving 0.1 ml of calcium 3x/week. They took some blood and checked her ionized calcium levels, only to find that she's hypERcalcemic! I don't know how that's even possible, given the conditions she came from, but there you have it. We are going to experiment with the amount of calcium to give her and see what helps. He is also sending some blood away to have her white cell counts checked - I believe he called it a CBC. He couldn't get enough blood to do a full blood panel, but he reminded me that we had done a full panel (other than calcium) when I first rescued her, and everything was within the normal range. We'll try again a few weeks down the road to do another full panel though.

As for the seizure, he could find no obvious cause. After I described the situation, he says he believes that it may have been due to the stress of being in the big tub, since she's not usually bathed there. I'm going to continue using the small tub to bathe her and hopefully there will be no more seizures! The only other thing he mentioned is that she has a very, very small necrosis on the tip of her tail. He said it will likely fall off on it's own, but of course I am going to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't spread.

I was very proud of her today. She didn't tail whip anyone, even when they took blood. And she was so fierce! The vet opened her mouth to have a look inside, and after he was done, she kept her mouth open as wide as it would go and showed him her beard. Every time she saw him her little beard would puff right out and she would put on a big display. She sucked right up to the tech though - put on her pretty colours and everything. :lol:

 

[Ethelia]

Hypercalcemic??
Good lord. Must that just be a genetic trait? I just cant fathom how a poor girl with no UV light or calcium for years can have too much in her!
Perhaps her little skin has gone into overdrive producing the stuff with her fancy new lighting at home.
I'll be really interested to find out what the vet thinks.
Campbell is certainly a woman of mystery.

So glad to hear it was nothing scary.
I must go tell Ruben the news. He has been pacing non stop like an expectant father worrying about "his" girl.

Holly

 

[Denise Bushnell (RIP)]

Sandy,

Oh My God....I'm so glad that your vet was knowledgeable enough to get that urate plug out of her, or she may have ruptured something and become septic!

I wonder if its possible that her not being able to pass her waste could have caused the seizure? Its hard to imagine that simple fear of being in the big tub could provoke a seizure, especially considering that she's usually such a fearless, stubborn little thing!

Since she seems to be so stingy with her bowel movements, have you considered giving her a 20-30 minute soak in really warm water every day? I know that, since Charlie has a lot of scar tissue in his intestines from when he was so sick as a baby with an terrible infestation of hookworms, which caused him to bleed internally, soaking him in very warm water every day is the only way that I can get him to go. He has never, in his entire life, been able to pass a bowel movement on his own, without being in water. That may help little Csmpbell Jane to go every day as well,if you give it a try.

As far as her fear of the big tub is concerned, I would invest in one of those plastic "Kritter Keepers" with the neon colored lids like they sell in pet stores, in the largest size. I have one for all three of mine, and those things are great...you can put enough water in them to cover their tummies, and they also have a lid, so if you have to leave the room for a minute, you can put it on, and you don't have to worry about other pets getting to them, or about their jumping out.

Just a couple of suggestions that may help.... I hope she has no more episodes, and continues to improve for you. You've done wonders with her so far. If you keep up the good work, I'm sure that eventually she'll become the healthy, happy little girl that she should be!

 

[Goonie]

(I totally missed your post in ER)

Oh my! Poor Miss CJ. I can't imagine being in the big girl tub would cause her to have a seizure, but then again, I'm no beardie so I could only guess. Like Denise said, could her straining to poop caused the seizure? I hope it won't happen again.

So, Miss CJ showed the vet what she thought about him sticking a tube up her you-know-what. Good for her. If I was able to poof up my neck, I probably would do the same thing if that ever happened to me. But I'm glad the probe worked.

Give her a big hug for me.

 

[dolcedragon]

I'm really sorry to hear the news. But at least now we know why she wasn't defecating by herself. Maybe she got used to having so little calcium in her system, and then her little body was shocked when actually given proper care?? I hope she is doing better now. *air hug for CJ*