|
One day in late February of 2005, I noticed that one of Bailey's feet appeared a bit swollen, and there was a dark spot on the top of the foot in question. I poked at the foot a bit and it didn't seem to cause Bailey any distress. I thought perhaps he had received a spider bite since he's been living in the outdoor cage. As with other times, I made a mental note to keep an eye on it and see how it developed. Every day, Bailey's foot was more and more swollen and he began to limp a bit on that leg. Not wanting to take him back to the vet that had botched his tail amputation the year before, I went back online and hit the yellow pages trying to find another herp vet in town. How it developed was very badly. |
 |
 |
It took a couple of days, but I finally hit paydirt and found an honest-to-goodness herp vet less than two miles from our home! And any doubts as to his qualifications and experience were put to rest when I found out he was the "house vet" for Mandalay Bay and several other major casinos in town. So it was that we became clients of Gentle Doctor Animal Hospital and Dr. Jason Sulliban, D.V.M. By the time we got Bailey in to see Dr. Sulliban, his foot looked like a plastic glove someone had blown up like a balloon. After giving Bailey a thorough visual exam, Dr. Sulliban took Bailey for an x-ray. |
|
The x-ray showed a mass in Bailey's foot, and two broken toes. Dr. Sulliban recommended surgery, and even offered to do it that very afternoon (as soon as he was finished with the emergency surgery he had to perform on a monitor lizard). I left Bailey in Dr. Sulliban's care and went home to anxiously await his call. All went well, and I was able to pick Bailey up that evening. Bailey wasn't the only thing I got to bring home, though. Dr. Sulliban had thoughtfully (read with a slightly sarcastic tone) saved the material he had removed from Bailey's foot and put it in a little jar for me. Eww and ick. Even so it was kind of interesting and I learned that iguana puss is not liquid like human puss, but more of a solid mass like cottage cheese. |
 |
 |
Bailey had five stitches in his foot which would need to be taken out in roughly six weeks if everything went well. There would be weekly checkups in the meantime, and Dr. Sulliban made sure I knew how to flush and treat the wound on a daily basis and to administer antibiotics. Getting Bailey to take his antibiotics was no problem as I just hid the pill each day in a small chunk of banana. Keeping the wound clean was another issue. |
|
Dr. Sulliban had left a "hole" in the foot for me to use a small suringe filled with antiseptic flush to clean out any new puss. I also had to use a small pick to remove new masses as they developed. Yuck. Just as the doctor predicted, the foot is healing quite well. We took the stitches out ourselves in the middle of April. The broken bones in Bailey's foot have yet to be dealt with. |
 |
 | We removed the stitches from Bailey's foot ourselves. It was plain to see that his foot had healed quite nicely. We still (as of April 22, 2005) have to take him back to the vet in order to decide what's to be done about his other toes. We're also considering having him neutured as he's been orange and violent for almost two years now without a rest. |