Forgive me if I babble in this. Hasn't been an easy night.
We lost Gertrude this evening and I really don't know how or why.
I just took her in to the vet on Tuesday for a checkup. Her weight was good. He checked her lungs and heart, etc. Gave her a totally clean bill of health.
This afternoon, around 3 or so, I took her down for her bath. She seemed perfectly fine. She drank some water. She went to the bathroom. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Took her back upstairs. Put her in her tank under her basking lamp. Offered her a superworm which she showed no real interest in.
Left the house for a couple of hours. Came home around 6:30 and noticed her, still laying on her rock (though in a different position from when I left her). Her eyes closed and mouth slightly open. She's been pretty listless lately, but by this time last year she'd started brumating so that's not all that odd.
I tapped on her glass... no response. Picked her up... she was limp. Warm from the lamp, of course, but non-responsive. I called her vet which was closed. Called the emergency number and they told me to bring her in right away. About a 15-20 minute drive, I guess. They were waiting at the door, which was awesome.
Half hour later they called us into a small exam room and told us that she had already passed when we got there. I'm pretty upset right now and trying to figure out what happened.
We don't really know how old she was. I posted when we bought her over a year ago that she was an adult when we got her. From the discussions on here along with those of her vet we had figured that she was between 2 and 3 years old when we got her. Probably almost 4 now.
Only two things stand out in my mind.
The first was that she wouldn't eat greens, which I had posted about a few times on here. The previous owner never tried to feed her anything but crickets. She ate pretty much exclusively superworms over the last year. I'd tried nearly every approach suggested on here, including tough love to the point where she had been losing weight. Finally gave up and returned her to the superworms.
She weighed about 650g (with the end of her tail on the table and her not completely contained on the scale) so I think that's pretty good.
The other is that it was kind of chilly Tuesday when I took her to the vet. I put a hot water bottle in with her but it was about 2 hours before she was back in her tank.
Later that afternoon we lost power which wasn't back on until late in the afternoon the next day.
The temperature of the room was about 60 or so for the night and I kept her warm the next day with a hot water bottle until the power came on.
I wouldn't THINK that this would be the problem but would like advised if you think it did.
Since she had already passed when the emergency vet saw her they couldn't identify why she did. They said she looked healthy otherwise. No visible marks of any problems or signs of any trauma.
I mentioned her diet to her and she said it's possible that she could have had renal failure from too much protein, which I know from here can happen. She said there would obviously be no outward signs and even bloodwork at this point might not show anything definitive.
Obviously it won't change anything but thoughts about it would be appreciated.
Anyway,
We'll miss you Gertrude.
We lost Gertrude this evening and I really don't know how or why.
I just took her in to the vet on Tuesday for a checkup. Her weight was good. He checked her lungs and heart, etc. Gave her a totally clean bill of health.
This afternoon, around 3 or so, I took her down for her bath. She seemed perfectly fine. She drank some water. She went to the bathroom. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Took her back upstairs. Put her in her tank under her basking lamp. Offered her a superworm which she showed no real interest in.
Left the house for a couple of hours. Came home around 6:30 and noticed her, still laying on her rock (though in a different position from when I left her). Her eyes closed and mouth slightly open. She's been pretty listless lately, but by this time last year she'd started brumating so that's not all that odd.
I tapped on her glass... no response. Picked her up... she was limp. Warm from the lamp, of course, but non-responsive. I called her vet which was closed. Called the emergency number and they told me to bring her in right away. About a 15-20 minute drive, I guess. They were waiting at the door, which was awesome.
Half hour later they called us into a small exam room and told us that she had already passed when we got there. I'm pretty upset right now and trying to figure out what happened.
We don't really know how old she was. I posted when we bought her over a year ago that she was an adult when we got her. From the discussions on here along with those of her vet we had figured that she was between 2 and 3 years old when we got her. Probably almost 4 now.
Only two things stand out in my mind.
The first was that she wouldn't eat greens, which I had posted about a few times on here. The previous owner never tried to feed her anything but crickets. She ate pretty much exclusively superworms over the last year. I'd tried nearly every approach suggested on here, including tough love to the point where she had been losing weight. Finally gave up and returned her to the superworms.
She weighed about 650g (with the end of her tail on the table and her not completely contained on the scale) so I think that's pretty good.
The other is that it was kind of chilly Tuesday when I took her to the vet. I put a hot water bottle in with her but it was about 2 hours before she was back in her tank.
Later that afternoon we lost power which wasn't back on until late in the afternoon the next day.
The temperature of the room was about 60 or so for the night and I kept her warm the next day with a hot water bottle until the power came on.
I wouldn't THINK that this would be the problem but would like advised if you think it did.
Since she had already passed when the emergency vet saw her they couldn't identify why she did. They said she looked healthy otherwise. No visible marks of any problems or signs of any trauma.
I mentioned her diet to her and she said it's possible that she could have had renal failure from too much protein, which I know from here can happen. She said there would obviously be no outward signs and even bloodwork at this point might not show anything definitive.
Obviously it won't change anything but thoughts about it would be appreciated.
Anyway,
We'll miss you Gertrude.
