- In a recent unboxing video,
most of the animals were quite healthy.
However, there were a few reptiles that were less healthy,
including a veiled chameleon,
which is one of the worst cases of an animal arriving alive,
but in a very poor condition.
The backstory of this chameleon
is a college student was going off,
a student was going off to college
and couldn't bring his reptiles.
So he was re-homing them to me.
But unfortunately,
someone else in the household left a window open
where the reptiles were kept,
and it dropped to extremely cold temperatures.
Luckily the majority of them were okay,
but a few of the more sensitive animals that were closest
to the cold weather did not take it so well.
And the veiled chameleon actually dropped
from the top of the enclosure
and was acting really weird after that.
It wouldn't open its eyes.
It was super lethargic.
And although he said it was eating,
it just wasn't acting too great.
But luckily it kind of started coming back to life
as it warmed up, started hydrating itself again,
and just got some time to rest.
When I unboxed him,
he was even worse than I expected
because he wouldn't even really react.
I wasn't even sure if he was alive at first,
but in the images that were sent,
he was at least holding on to things in the enclosure.
And like I said, the owner said he was eating and drinking.
So that seemed to be a good enough sign.
A chameleon not opening its eyes can simply mean
that it's just really stressed out,
or there can be another issue aside from that.
So it was just a matter of seeing what would happen.
So while filming the unboxing,
I stopped, went and put him in just a nice little
screened enclosure that we'd normally use for chameleons.
And by the way, this was the first ever
chameleon I've gotten.
So it had just been kind of waiting.
I finally got something.
It just wasn't a very healthy example.
It's probably rare for us to get chameleons
because they are so sensitive.
And when something goes wrong,
they die before they can be re-homed to us.
That actually happened with a few others
that were going to be sent,
but did not survive actually in time to come our way.
I filmed this unboxing late at night.
And I knew that he was gonna need some medical care,
because although if you've seen some of my other videos,
I tend not to get along with the vets extremely well.
I know the only constant between all the different vets
and all the different reptiles
and all the different issues, is me.
And something about me never gets along with the vets.
We never really agree.
From my experience with various animals,
I oftentimes don't think certain things are necessary.
I oftentimes think that other things are more necessary.
And I certainly have no medical licenses.
I have not been to college.
And they went through the entirety of vet school
and got degrees and stuff,
but oftentimes they don't have experience or knowledge
on even the most basic things that you can Google.
Some of the other vets have even committed
actual malpractice in front of me.
And I know these are only a handful, select number of vets.
I'd say I've worked with less than 30 vets total.
So obviously there's hundreds or maybe thousands of vets
that specialize in exotics.
But then again, those that specialize in exotics
oftentimes have never even seen the species of reptiles
that I bring in.
But I needed some help, because I can't do blood work,
I can't do x-rays.
The most importantly, I can not prescribe
prescriptions for reptiles.
So for that reason, I just stayed up all night
'cause I knew I wouldn't be able to wake up in time,
and called one of the normal vets that I can get
prescriptions from, but they were totally booked up.
I had to go to an emergency exotic vet.
And if you've been to exotic vets,
you will know that they're expensive.
If you've been to emergency vets,
you'll know that they're expensive.
So combine the two and it's extra expensive.
Just to see the animal,
just to even bring it into the facility, was $150,
but whatever, that's the price of taking in reptiles.
So it wasn't surprising.
And they were able to take me in.
So I zipped over there with him
and he made it to the vet okay.
Sometimes I'm just scared on the drive alone
as to how the chameleon's gonna be.
But he was okay and I got him in to the vet.
Well, it's been a couple hours now.
People know I'm not a huge vet fan in general.
And they're like, well, why do you go?
You must need them.
And yeah, I do need them because I can't legally prescribe
myself medications for the animals.
So, but for this animal,
I'm not getting an x-rays or blood work or fecal.
I literally just need the vitamins and the ceftazidime
or whatever they have.
I try not to use Baytril.
So it's just a matter of convincing them
to just give me the stuff I need.
But no, they called and said, all right,
we're gonna hospitalize it here.
I don't know how much that'll cost.
Hospitalizing a dog for example,
can be anywhere from 500 to $1000 a day.
So I'm sure it's at least a hundred plus dollars a day.
They're like, we're gonna hospitalize.
I was like, why would you hospital, what are you gonna do?
So we're gonna do all of the special care that it needs.
We're gonna give it all the injections.
We're gonna give it the oral stuff.
We're gonna give it this.
We're gonna stick this up his butt.
Just everything it needs.
It's all stuff that we literally do all the time.
I can barely add and subtract numbers.
And yet I can do literally everything that they would charge
hundreds of dollars to do.
So I was like, no, just how much is it?
You give me the syringes.
You give me the bottle of juice.
You give me the calcium.
How much?
And they're like, you should hospitalize.
I was like, no, I'm not hospitalizing.
How much?
And they said $150.
(snickering)
So I doubt they profit much at all
off the actual meds and stuff.
So they have to make money,
but it shows that in my defense,
I don't feel like paying them to do something
that I can do super easily.
So that's one of the many reasons that vets
tend to get on my nerves.
So they haven't really done anything.
I mean, it's been in there for hours.
They were like, we'll give it its first dose of ceftazidime.
I can do it myself.
I can stab it with a needle.
Anyone can actually.
You shouldn't just do it straight up,
go to your animal and start stabbing it with needles.
But if you get someone experienced or licensed,
have them show you once or twice,
and it's almost guaranteed
you'll be able to do it next time.
One random vet showed me how to do it.
And I was able to actually show multiple people
that help me how to do it.
And they do it perfectly.
So I'm basically waiting just for them to pull the meds
into the syringes, which I can also do myself,
but they're doing it.
So I'm just waiting for that.
Will it survive?
I don't know.
Probably, it's hard to say.
So it was a pain.
I was just trying to get the prescription I wanted,
which was ceftazidime.
'Cause even though I'm not a big fan of it,
it's basically the only option you have for reptiles.
There's not very many approved antibiotics that you can
legally prescribe to reptiles,
aside from ceftazidime and Baytril
for more general issues that don't have a specified
kind of cure, I guess.
And Baytril is known to be even more controversial.
I have used it with three or four reptiles and it was okay
with some of them, not as okay with some of the others.
But ceftazidime is kind of the best we've got.
So they gave me the ceftazidime.
They also gave me calcium gluconate,
which I can just give orally.
And I thought they were giving me vitamin B injections.
It turns out they only gave him one vitamin B injection
and didn't give me any more.
Other vets in the past actually gave me others to use.
It's kind of like a stimulant.
You can give them a little jolt.
It'll make them a little hungrier, a little more energetic.
And it makes everything easier.
They really wanted me to hospitalize Arnold,
and they were like, well, we'll be on top of everything.
We'll monitor him.
We'll give him the oral medicine and the injections.
And it'll all be handled. And I was like, I can do all that.
I don't want to hospitalize.
They're like, but we should.
I was like, why?
They're like, because.
And I was like, no.
And I had to wait a few extra hours just to pick him up
because they had to pull back the injections for me
and prep them.
They did a terrible job prepping them.
They didn't even remove the air bubbles.
They didn't even prioritize the chameleon.
I know this isn't totally related,
but I want to throw it in.
They didn't prioritize the chameleon
over the dying dogs in the building.
I know, people tend to like dogs more than reptiles,
but they were clearly picking favorites with clients
because they were like,
well, we haven't looked at Arnold yet
because this other dying dog just came in.
Then we got it.
Well, to be honest, it's probably already dead now,
when Arnold kind of needed some pretty urgent care
that I paid for.
But they didn't seem to prioritize what came in in a row.
They were prioritizing whatever animals they wanted.
So whatever,
at least someone was willing to look at Arnold
and get him the stuff that will hopefully help him out.
So, their physical exam.
They said, eyes are extremely shrunken.
Stuck shed, mild amount of mucus in mouth.
Brown lesions in mouth.
'Cause I think it's mouth rot,
but I'm not 100% sure yet.
And that's it.
That's their full exam.
They didn't really do anything,
because it's obvious in the clips.
It's not just one little issue wrong with him.
He has a ton of mucus in his mouth, like they said.
He literally won't open his eyes at all.
You can't even see his eyes, they're so sunken.
He has covered in stuck shed, which isn't a big deal.
That's not what I'm prioritizing.
And he's hardly moving.
And they didn't have any ideas or advice on any of it.
They said, spoke with the owner over the phone,
discussed the history,
discussed the causes of the clinical signs,
discussed recommendations for pursuing hospitalization,
and discussed radiographs to assess bone density.
They didn't even ask me if I wanted x-rays
but they claim that I denied x-rays.
I would have, maybe they just read my mind.
So they shot him with some vitamin B
and gave him back to me.
And I instantly just brought them home and gave him
some Carnivore Care.
Well, after letting him rest.
So he's rested for a while.
And then I finally gave him just a little bit of food.
'Cause I want to do it while that vitamin B is still kind of
right in his body and affecting him,
to make sure he eats a bit more.
So I did get some down.
He spit out maybe half of it, not too abnormal.
It's okay.
It's better than nothing.
I also got him his first ceftazidime shot,
which was totally fine.
He didn't react, probably because he doesn't have the
physical strength to, but that plays to my advantage.
It makes the injection super easy.
And now he's just gonna rest and chill.
I've got a warmish lamp on him.
Nothing as hot as a chameleon hotspot,
but not as cool as room temperature,
so that he doesn't cook or freeze
because he can't really move around the enclosure.
He's not gripping on at all.
And now I'm just gonna let him relax,
let the hydration, let the water hydrate him a bit
and just let him hang out and breathe and chill.
Watch some Netflix or something.
I don't know.
So yeah, it's bad.
The vets literally, the vet and the vet techs were all like,
he's gonna die.
So just letting you know.
I'm like, okay, great.
Well help me have him not die as fast.
I don't know, everything's gonna die eventually.
And after just bickering back and forth
with the people there, I'm done with them.
What was the total?
It was like 400 bucks or something.
I don't know where the receipt went. That's how it is.
It's not the most expensive vet bill.
It's also not the cheapest,
but that's what I got to do since I don't have a vet license
and would probably fail every test I need to get there.
So I guess I should be grateful in that regard, at least.
So this is Arnold now.
I'm not holding him because he needs to chill.
From this point, the antibiotics
I do just need to finish out.
Same with human antibiotics.
Even if he gets better,
I'll keep going through and make sure he completes them all.
After that, I'm not 100% sure, but we'll see.
It'll be a couple of weeks before he's done with all of it.
So I'm just gonna go through the process.
I'm not gonna handle him too much.
I'm gonna watch him.
I will still spray the enclosure because the ventilation
and the humidity is good for him.
And maybe he'll drink a little water on his own.
He just has everything available.
He even has some insects available
in case he happens to see them.
But oh wait, he can't open his eyes.
So maybe not.
And it will just be a matter of watching him each day.
Do I think he'll survive?
Right now, I wouldn't be terribly surprised either way.
I do have more hope than the vets,
who's like, he's gonna die.
Just letting you know.
They didn't recommend euthanizing him or anything.
And one of the hard parts is it is hard to tell
when reptiles are actively in actual pain
because they don't scream.
They don't cry.
They don't even whimper like a dog or cat would.
It's pretty difficult to tell when the quality of life
is past that point of worth trying to save.
And when you should basically just pull the plug,
AKA euthanize the animal.
So I don't think he's at that point yet.
And he seemed to kind of enjoy the food maybe,
but maybe I was just imagining that
and kind of personifying him.
So that's Arnold.
Let me think.
Let me think what you know.
Let me think.
Let me know what you think.
But overall I'm hoping I don't have to do much with him.
'Cause I think he should just rest and relax
and let his body try and heal over time,
and we'll see how it goes.
But that's it.
That's I guess part one and I'll continue making videos
on him, assuming he makes it through
at least the next few days.
But I won't leave you on a cliffhanger.
I'll let you know as I know things.
And you can check out the unboxing
where I guess that's kind of the part one
of getting them out of the box,
which is kind of an important step.
And that'll be it.
So I'm Alex and thanks for watching.
(gentle music)