Darrell

Patient Records

Pastel Leopard ball python

Darrell has a severe jaw deformity.  Darrell had surgery on his jaw for an abscess several months ago at the Center for Birds and Exotic Animal Medicine (CBEAM).  Unfortunately the surgery didn’t seem to work and his abnormalities came back.  His owner asked us to take him in becasue she could no longer take care of him.  He also had severe mite infection when we took him in so we wonder if perhaps husbandry was less than ideal and contributed to his illness.

We aren’t yet sure if we are going to be able to save him but we’re giving him some time in our ICU to see what he does.   


UPDATE: Darrell has been transferred to our Snake Haus East location for further care. Nicky performed a second surgery on 2/8/19 to take biopsies and debride the swollen area. Large amounts of abnormal tissue were found that resemble combination of necrotic debris and glandular tissue. Samples were sent to the lab for histopathology and we will need to wait for those results before knowing what our next step needs to be. Darrell is recovering well. Stay tuned for the next update.

We apologize for the somewhat graphic nature of these photos. Please don’t be alarmed – Darrell was under full general anesthesia during this procedure and is now on good pain meds and antibiotics during his after care.


UPDATE: Darrell has now had a second surgery to remove the rest of his abnormal tissue. He came through surgery with flying colors and is doing well. Stay tuned for more updates. We are hopeful this was the last surgery that he will need. The video below shows how we monitor his heart rate while under anesthesia. You can see the Doppler probe and his heart beating!

Snake surgery!Darrell the BP had his 3rd surgery today and is now back home again at Snake Haus East resting comfortably with pain meds and antibiotics on board.This little dude is such a trooper. His chin has continued to swell back up each time the abscess was drained. So this time the entire abscess was removed en-bloc with it's capsule intact. This hopefully means we finally got it all and it won't come back. We will have to wait and see what he does once his post-op swelling resolves. The mass was also sent out for histopathology again to make sure its not a tumor.The main video here in this post shows a portion of anesthesia – we use a doppler machine to listen to the heart rate and a technician controls the respiratory rate and plain of anesthesia by breathing for him through an endotracheal tube. GRAPHIC: Please go to the comments to see additional videos and photos of the actual surgery. The images from surgery are a bit graphic so viewer discretion is advised. watch the videos with sound on so you can hear the Doppler.Feel free to ask questions in the comments!

Posted by Snake Haus on Wednesday, April 3, 2019