Spider8ait1994
Hatchling Member
So I’m making this thread as a place to provide updates on my now elderly rescue Spike as some users who’ve been helping and following his recent health scare have been interested in continuing to know how he’s going.
For those reading this who haven’t read about his health scare last year around late August he was diagnosed with Chromatophotoma (a rarely diagnosed, fast growing and aggressive tumor) in his beard/throat region.
He underwent surgery in early September at a specialist vet facility to remove the tumor which also ended up involving the removal of a portion of his oesophagus and subsequent reconstruction.
He’s recovered very well, better than even the specialist vet team was expecting him to.
He’s healed up very well and at this point 4 months on you wouldn’t even be able to tell he’d had a feeding tube placed unless you knew exactly where to look. His surgical scar continues to improve with time and from a distance you can’t see he had a 5cm incision.
He did lose some weight over this time which is understandable as the tumor had been beginning to compress his oesophagus so he wasn’t wanting to really eat.
He is beginning to gain that weight back now he’s feeling better and was just over 500 grams the other day when I weighed him.
While we don’t know his exact age as his original owners didn’t provide those details we do estimate he’s no younger than 8 years old though potentially is older than that.
With his age he is losing his short range vision so nowdays he doesn’t have enough short range vision to see his food and eat unassisted so I am now helping him with getting food into his mouth.
He’s continuing to improve in re-learning how to use his tongue post surgery and while he is mostly eating a specialised formula or blended up ‘smoothies’ he is able to eat prepared young prickly pear pad if it’s cut up small.
Given the type of tumor he had it is likely that it will return in time but at this stage I haven’t seen or felt any indication that it’s begin returning just yet.
He did end up losing the end of his tail during his surgery recovery so we think that a pre-existing abnormality with his tail tip had made it more likely to shrivel and die off and at that time his immune system was likely more focused on surgery healing and left that tail tip ‘unguarded’ so to speak. It hasn’t bothered him and the shrivelling hasn’t progressed since the end fell off and healed over.
So at this stage he is continuing to improve and doesn’t seem to be in any sort of pain or discomfort.
Additionally tomorrow (29th January Australian time) will be exactly 6 years since I took him and my other rescue dragon in.
I’m hoping I’ll get many more years with Spike but whatever happens I know that in taking him in I’ve been able to give him a much longer, better life than he’d have otherwise had given his condition when he was rescued.
@Drache613
For those reading this who haven’t read about his health scare last year around late August he was diagnosed with Chromatophotoma (a rarely diagnosed, fast growing and aggressive tumor) in his beard/throat region.
He underwent surgery in early September at a specialist vet facility to remove the tumor which also ended up involving the removal of a portion of his oesophagus and subsequent reconstruction.
He’s recovered very well, better than even the specialist vet team was expecting him to.
He’s healed up very well and at this point 4 months on you wouldn’t even be able to tell he’d had a feeding tube placed unless you knew exactly where to look. His surgical scar continues to improve with time and from a distance you can’t see he had a 5cm incision.
He did lose some weight over this time which is understandable as the tumor had been beginning to compress his oesophagus so he wasn’t wanting to really eat.
He is beginning to gain that weight back now he’s feeling better and was just over 500 grams the other day when I weighed him.
While we don’t know his exact age as his original owners didn’t provide those details we do estimate he’s no younger than 8 years old though potentially is older than that.
With his age he is losing his short range vision so nowdays he doesn’t have enough short range vision to see his food and eat unassisted so I am now helping him with getting food into his mouth.
He’s continuing to improve in re-learning how to use his tongue post surgery and while he is mostly eating a specialised formula or blended up ‘smoothies’ he is able to eat prepared young prickly pear pad if it’s cut up small.
Given the type of tumor he had it is likely that it will return in time but at this stage I haven’t seen or felt any indication that it’s begin returning just yet.
He did end up losing the end of his tail during his surgery recovery so we think that a pre-existing abnormality with his tail tip had made it more likely to shrivel and die off and at that time his immune system was likely more focused on surgery healing and left that tail tip ‘unguarded’ so to speak. It hasn’t bothered him and the shrivelling hasn’t progressed since the end fell off and healed over.
So at this stage he is continuing to improve and doesn’t seem to be in any sort of pain or discomfort.
Additionally tomorrow (29th January Australian time) will be exactly 6 years since I took him and my other rescue dragon in.
I’m hoping I’ll get many more years with Spike but whatever happens I know that in taking him in I’ve been able to give him a much longer, better life than he’d have otherwise had given his condition when he was rescued.
@Drache613
