http://nickandcaranoles.tripod.com/home/pics/dezzy.htm The cooling down of Indiana -- and this room, in particular -- affected not only Cammy, but also Dezzy. After Cammy died, I decided to take Dezzy in to be checked. The bump on his neck turned out to be a collection of uric acid -- a goiter, pretty much. Well, he treated that and gave me a formula to help get him back to eating. It was a sugary liquid that, after i made him drink 10 mL every three days, made him eat some more. However, judging from the fact he had a goiter, he was pretty old, and the lack of food took a lot out of him, even though he was the more robust of the couple. *looking back, he always seemed to be an "old codger"-type character; the two pictures about halfway down the pics page show his personality, where he's looking at the camera as if to say "Get away from my basking spot, you knickerbocker!"* The night of December 13, I found him laying on the floor of his cage, which seems to be the death position for anoles *rather like an elephant graveyard; anoles seem to want to die on the ground so they will be broken down into the soil*. Having found Cammy in this position, I realized that was his last night alive. He already had black marks behind his eyes, so I knew he wasn't the happiest anole he'd ever been. However, I spent the rest of the night with him in my hand *which, as my girlfriend has repeatedly pointed out, are quite warm *. After a while, he started dozing off, but became quite frantic when he could no longer see. I managed to serenade him to calmness. Eventually, I fell asleep with him in my hand. When I awoke *at 1 AM*, he had died. However, he was green the whole time. *weak smile* I'm just glad he went peacefully, and that I was able to be with him. As a sidenote, later that day I had to take the ACT. Oy. I was fine, except that right in the middle of the Mathematics part *the third out of four parts*, he and Cammy came back to my memory. I managed to get through a bit more of it, but by the time I got to the Science Reasoning, my brain was fried. Somehow, I still managed to get a 27 After that, my parents made me take everything that I had used for the anoles out of the guest room *so what if it wasn't my room? lol* and carry it down to the basement. I had about a dozen crickets left over, and, me having a personal vendetta against all the crickets I ever owned for either spreading disease to the other crickets, eating my crickets, or killing Cammy, I just left them in the freezing-cold basement. *the alternative -- turning them loose into an Indiana winter -- wasn't much better; at least I've managed to forgive crickets*. After that, I kinda lost any connection with lizards, which mainly resulted in my not returning to reptilerooms.com or updating my site. I'm finally okay, though. My girlfriend, Cara, had gotten a hermit crab for a class project and got quite into them. By advice of her message board people, she got Herman *Herman's Hermits. Get it?... tough crowd :-p* a new friend. However, after three rejections, she got the idea Herman wasn't exactly an outgoing hermit crab. Her last attempt, Hermione *feminine version of Herman*, was kept in a separate cage, much to her parents' dismay, and was eventually given to me. She doesn't move around much *something to which to adjust, after having had the two most active anoles I've ever seen*, but she seems to be healthy. Cara, being the pet-obsessed girl that she is, has recently been considering getting a leopard gecko *we invested a lot of money into anoles and anole supplies, so we figure we can use some of them for a gecko*. Today she asked me to do some research on them and, naturally, I came here first. After giving her some information, I decided to come on here and... voilá. I drew a picture for Dezzy on his coffin *empty box that used to contain checkbooks; perfect size* that is really quite lovely. If anyone wants to see it, I don't feel like uploading it to my webpage, so PM me with your email address. [Edited on 3/2/2003 by Camillo]
Glad to hear the two of you are back and looking into another lizard. The knowledgebase info Axe has on theis site is really quite good. I've gotten lots of great advice from there and reading other posts on the leo forum here as well. Getting some leos soon myself, so I know what you're going through trying to make sure everything is just right for them and their wellbeing. Let us know when you get one.
GLAD to hear your not given up.....I lost all four of my beardies last year right before Christmas and I too almost gave up on lizard's,but I had Leopold (my leapord geeko) and a freind gave my Uro (my Uromastyx) so taking care of them has kept me interested even though their just not the same as my beardies and now I will be going to the reptile show in Tampa and bringing home another beardie and I can't wait.....the moral is don't give up on something you know in your heart you love no matter how heart breaking a moment you have....I also held my beloved Merlin as he passed on from the yellow fungus and it was heart breaking to watch him waste away to nothing and try as I might I couldn't help him......Keep your chin and Take Care...everything has a way of working out for the best even if you can't see it at the time!!!! Tonya
