Barrie's medical emergency!

[Catherine]

Barrie had a good night. This morning he had the towel wrapped around himself and he looked very comfortable.
His hemipenes is really drying up and "dying". His body has cut off the blood supply. I am putting antibiotic around the base to prevent infection. 
I went through the same thing with Earl and he survived. It is just that Barrie is much bigger. He is being pretty cooperative when I need to treat him. I am holding him with one hand and putting the anti biotic on with the other. Normally I need two hands to hold him. I think he understands that I am helping. I am also giving him backrubs which he really loves. He arches his back into my hand and gets a blissful look on his face. 

He could still infect, but it really looks hopeful that he will recover. It may be weeks before I am sure, but having him eat was a tremendous relief.

Even if a vet had taken some training in reptiles, there are so many different kinds, no vet could know what to do with each species. If I had let a vet operate on Barrie(I never considered taking him to a vet) how would they know how much anesthetic to use. There would be no statistics for Tegus in general let alone for Black and White Columbian Tegus. Don't mix him with the Black and White Argentinian Tegu, they are much longer and easily 4-5 times the weight. The only vet who might have some idea would be a zoo vet at a major zoo. That person would have done some serious specializing in their training and would have worked with many different animals.

I am not sure anyone not used to handling Barrie could have done the cleanup I did. I had to flush out a lot of dirt that had gotten trapped inside his hemipenes. You know your pet trusts you when they let you do that.

Quote:I got a terrible ache in my hip, found a doctor and went for a consultation. "Well young lady," said the doctor, "I think you need more exercise!"
In a daze I asked him, "...Do you mean I should walk more than thirty miles at a weekend instead of twenty six?"
He just stared at me for a moment. "Maybe you should have a rest instead." He said.

This sounds like my usual experiences with doctors. 
He didn't ask you any questions, he just went ahead and gave advice. What if you hadn't questioned him. More exercise would have made it worse.
I never trust medications offered unless I read about them first and decide if I think they are safe and could possibly help. I doubt if I fill 25% of the prescriptions that were written for me. I will need to renew my Tetanus Shot within the next 18 months. That should be fun. If I get bitten by something I will be okay, but to convince a doctor that I want the shot for protection because I know something will bite me or I will get a cut in the garden, that could take some convincing.

Visits to the emergency ward are even more annoying. I had something in my eye and I wanted it checked by a doctor. There were tears running down my face and my nose was running so they put on the admission paper that I had a cold. NO! Anything in the eye like that will cause a reaction in the nose. The doctor never bothered to read the paper so I told him about my eye. 
Otherwise he might have given me cold medicine.