Ray of Hope

I ran the Charm City Reptile and Amphibian Rescue for 14 years (no longer in operation). 

A man called and said he had a Nile monitor from a friend a few months earlier and could no longer keep it. It was in a really nice cage, one of those Vision Cages with the sliding glass doors in front. It was an eight-footer, too. Those are pretty pricey. Too bad it had a Nile monitor in it. They are really hard to place!

I figured I could sell the cage because there was no room for it anywhere. The owner made a donation along with the animal and the cage.

The guy showed up, and the animal was pretty much walking dead. It could not hold its head up and was lying flat on its belly, legs splayed to the sides. When it did manage to hold its head up, it shook back and forth. We named him Ray Charles because of the head movement. And, Yes. We sometimes have gallows humor around here! It helps take the edge off the sadness we often face.

I called my vet’s office to set up an appointment for the Nile monitor. About an hour later, one of the vet techs called me. She had a Nile monitor and was always begging the rescue to take it because she couldn’t handle it any more. The vet tech thought the monitor I got was hers. She gave it to a friend who then brought it to me.

I told her that the animal was near death and in horrible condition. She told me she would do “ANYTHING” to help. I said, “Can you put money towards the bill?” I knew it would be a big one.

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“You could come over and help clean cages,” I said, hopefully. “That would be a big help.”

“I can’t do that,” she said.

So, guess what? She did nothing, not giving one penny towards the animal’s medication or treatment. Quite the opposite. She told me how much money she spent on the caging. Who cares? Once you buy caging, the money is gone. I honestly think she wanted me to give her money. She had a rude awakening.

I took the Nile to Westview Animal Hospital to see my vet, Dr. Sue Felter. I was thrilled the vet tech was not working that day. Sadly, the monitor was very sick. He had a serious infection that spread throughout his system called septicemia. Without immediately starting on antibiotics, the poor thing would have been dead within a day. That’s the wonderful care given by its owner.

Reptiles are slow to show signs of illness. By the time they do, they are usually in poor shape. Waiting well after you notice signs of illness is just horrible. It is one of the terrible things we saw on a daily basis while doing rescue. It is an ugly world out there, and so many people do not take care of their animals the way they should.

My vet and I made a deal. I tend to wait too long to euthanize animals. I want to give them every chance to get better. We decided that the course of antibiotics would be two weeks. By then, if the monitor didn’t show signs of improvement, we would put him down. It gave me a goal, and I was going to stick to it this time.

I had no idea how long it had been since this pitiful creature ate. We started with chicken baby food, which smells so awful! I find it hard to believe people feed that to babies. It is foul-smelling. But it was food, and the lizard needed to eat. I can’t remember, but I think the medication was an oral antibiotic that I added to the food. 

I tubed in medication, the baby food, and then flushed it with water. This is always a good time… I started with a catheter tube, which had to be wide enough to allow food to pass through but narrow enough to fit down the animal’s throat. It usually required watering down the baby food to make it flow through the tube easily.

Tube feeding usually goes well the first time because the animal is very sick and weak. It always gives me a false sense of security! The second time, it gets harder. The animal knows what you are going to do. By the third time, the animal is already starting to feel better (hopefully) from the medication and starts fighting when the tube is inserted. Tube feeding becomes progressively harder each time.

However, in this case, it didn’t happen. Ray just didn’t seem to have any interest in living. The poor guy (and I really don’t know the sex, I’m using guy generically) didn’t care if I tubed him. That made it a lot easier to medicate him, but didn’t offer a lot of hope. 

The vet tech kept calling to check on the health of the animal and asked me to please let her know if I was going to put him down. The hell with her! She didn’t care, and she wouldn’t help. She had no say in the matter at all. 

Meanwhile, I moved him into a cage where he had lots of room to roam. Too bad he rarely moved all day. I sold the cage that came with the animal to help pay for medicine.

After two weeks were up, I called Dr. Felter. No improvement. We set up a time for me to bring him in for euthanasia the following day. I spent some time with Ray that day. It’s always a terrible feeling when I have to put an animal down. I feel like I have to mention this because the former owner was feeling nothing. 

The next day I looked in the cage. The lizard picked up his head briefly, it swayed from side to side, and then he put it back down. What a sad sight.

I stuck a towel in a dog crate and put the Nile inside. He was missing the end of his tail, but it was still an effort to get him in there. In the end, I just curled his tail around his body and gently slid him into the carrier.

Driving to Dr. Felter’s office was not a happy time for me. I was feeling bad because I couldn’t make this animal better. I gave it my best shot. And, he was going to die with a full belly. He had all the comforts I could offer for those two stressful weeks.

I sat in the waiting room, sick to my stomach. Luckily, the vet tech was not at work that day. At this point, it was none of her business.

The vet tech who was working came into the waiting room and said to bring the monitor back. With a heavy heart, I walked that long walk down the hallway to the treatment area. I gently removed the lizard from the crate. He looked at me, looked at Dr. Felter and held his head up high.

“What?!?!” I said.

“I don’t think we’ll kill him today,” Dr. Felter laughed.

He was fighting me. He was fighting her. We struggled to weigh him. He had gained some weight while I was tube-feeding him.

“He looks much better.” Dr. Felter said. “What’s wrong with you? Why did you bring him?” She joked, giving me a hard time. The mood was suddenly much brighter.

“I swear, he didn’t look any better when I put him in the carrier this morning,” I said, shaking my head. We both had a good laugh, and I brought Ray back home. Now came the hard part – trying to find him a permanent home.

I’m happy to say that the vet tech in question doesn’t work at Westview anymore. The Nile was with me for over two years of cleaning, feeding and months of medicating! The vet tech never called me back, and I was glad to never hear from her again. My Ray of hope ended up being the very last rescue to be adopted before the rescue closed its doors for good.

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Read more by Holli Friedland.