She died tonight. February 29, 2020.
Its so weird. And sad.
I've had her for so long, it seemed like I'd just have her forever. I had her before Ari. Before any of the other animals I have now.
She's moved everywhere with me. I've kept her even when i probably shouldn't have (money wise, and access to her type of food)
When I look at her empty tank it makes me sad. I'll take it down tomorrow probably.
I'm not sure what was wrong with her. At first i thought maybe she got impacted from the play sand i was keeping her on.
I've kept her on sand (meant for reptiles) saw dust, paper towels, crushed walnut shells, and she's always been fine. I know it only takes one time for them to have issues. So when I noticed she wasn't doing well, i started looking stuff up. I took the sand out right away and put her on paper towels. I made sure to watch for poop. She pooped, but not normal poop. It was small. But i soaked her in warm water, got some stuck shed off her face. I tried to feed her some meal worms but she didn't eat them. I went to wilco to buy some crickets but all of their crickets were dead. I was going to buy some canned crickets, but I knew i'd be wasting my money. She wouldn't eat them dead. Freshly dead, yes, but not canned.
So I ordered some wax worms a couple days later (when i had money). I thought they'd take to long to get here but surprisingly they got here 4 days before i expected them.
I cut one open and tried to force her to eat it with no luck. I should have tried harder, but even then i think it was too late for her.
She wasn't really opening her eyes much. She had lost a lot of weight and fat.
I wish i would have tried sooner to do something for her.
The night she died, I was sitting down to eat, when i went to check her real quick and saw her tail first, then realized she was upside down. I almost didn't notice because her belly is while and blended with the paper towel. I touched her, thinking she was dead, that she died within a couple of hours ago. When i touched her she kind of moved so i scooped her up. She was barely there. I grabbed a syringe and went to get some warm water to force down her a bit. After i saw her gulp a little, i got the ReptiBoost, a complete supplement that provides energy and helps sick reptiles. I forced some of that down and kept thinking of the video of a pretty much dead bearded dragon and guy saved. He said there were several times he thought the dragon had died. In the video he was in he was holding the beardie in his hand, and it was on the road to recovery. In clips he showed, the dragon was limp and looked dead. That's how Cesar looked. So i kept trying. I'd put her back in her cage for a while, let her rest and warm up on her head pad, and go back 15-20 minutes later and do it again. After I ate, i went back and tried again.
Before that video I'd watched I contemplated ending her suffering and drowning her, which i know sounds horrible but I didn't want her to be like this for hours if she was going to die anyways. But she would move a little more, so i kept trying and kept praying that God give her a shot.
I kept thinking how amazing it'd be if she went from limp, pretty much dead Cesar to gaining some energy and surviving another 15 years. I was going to record her some, but decided not to, and just focus on what i was doing.
After I ate, i check her again and her arms were stiff. I'd pick her up and massage her chest, kind of like chest compressions (I did that a few times when i thought she'd died already, and she'd show me she was still there.)
I couldn't quite tell if she was there anymore, so i set her down. This time her head didn't fight flopping like it did before. She was completely limp, and when i tried to give her more water, it would sit in her throat and when i put her back in her tank, it drained out on the paper towel.
I tried working with her a little more, but could just tell she was gone now. I was going to wait to bury her until tomorrow, but decided I should just do it now. I buried her on my back porch in a wood planter with just dirt in it. I figure in a few months, (this sounds morbid) I could dig her up and preserve her skeleton.... maybe!? I don't know yet. It's just fresh so I feel like i need to hold on to her.
It's going to be so weird not having a tank with a gecko in it.
I've had so many geckos over the years.
First was Sammy. But I didn't have her more than 2 years I'd say. She was attacked by Pawsom our cat, and died from infection (she did go to a vet who didn't know much about leopard geckos and tried to make me feel (and succeeded) incompetent. While they were treating her, she dropped her tail, which they said was caused by metobolic bone disease and that she requires a UV/UVB light. Wrong. You can have those. But they aren't needed, as leopard geckos are nocturnal. I wonder if this vet told me this so i wouldn't sue her for injuring my gecko further. When i mentioned that I had an incubator with eggs in it at home she said "Oh, cool. Sounds like you're doing something right."
Jerk.
Cesar was 2nd. I actually thought she was a male. She was pressed up against the glass at Petco with a bunch of other babies and i was sure I saw the bulge. Wrong lol. Silly me. I knew you couldn't sex geckos until they were older.
I don't remember why I named her Cesar. It could have been after the Dog Whisperer, but i doubt it. I don't think i knew who he was at that point (2002)
Cesar laid her first clutch of eggs in, i wanna say March 2003. I didn't have an egg candler so, I did a really stupid thing. I cut one of the eggs open to see if it was growing anything, killing the baby inside. If I'd known any better, which I'm sure i did, I would have known if it was bad because it would have just deflated pretty much. Both looked fine. I left the other one alone, until he hatched on May 23rd, 2003. I thought he was a girl for a while.
Cesar was bred to my 3rd leopard gecko, Diego.
I got Diego from a guy in Corvalis, a breeder called Beaver State Reptiles. He had leopard geckos and ball pythons. He was sending a bunch of males to someone, and he was giving me one for free if I could pick it up. I had no clue where Corvalis was.
I asked Eddy if he could take me to get it. He didn't want to drive all the way out there, but he did it anyways, with hardly any complaint.
I picked out Diego, from a 10 gallon with a bunch of other males, which even at the time was weird to me. You aren't supposed to house males together. I wanna say there were 10 or more in the tank.
I forget the guys name.
We got Diego and went home. This was March 23, 2003.
I named Diego after the saber tooth tiger in Ice Age. I liked the name.
I had my three geckos for a few years. They moved with me into my first apartment with Ari.
I found a new home for Orange Sprinkles when he was 5 or 6 years old, in May 2009.
Sobe was the 2nd baby born. Rain was her sister, but she escaped the box I was keeping them in and I never found her (We lived in an old farm house and i think she some how go in between the walls, from a small less than half inch crank between the floor and wall.)
Sobe lost her tail when she was still a baby, when Shane and Holly were messing with her. I was so angry.
Sobe was named after the Sobe drink with the lizard.
She moved with me when i lived with Jenny. She was living in a lego container because one of Jenny's kids broke her tank. She some how escaped that, and I never found her again. She either got outside through the sliding glass door or something.
Sammy, Cesar, Diego, Orange Sprinkles, Sobe, Rain, Sunshine, Senorita, Scream, a few babies in there that didn't have names. Toothless, Hiccup, Astrid, Monstrous Nightmare, Banana, Blue, a few more babies,
