Well, I'm having one heck of a month.

[on:]

Coincidentally, since Skittles died on January 2nd, I have a new problem on my hands. Her widowed mate Velcro has had a bad accident. Last night Ricky and I went to feed the gliders and noticed that Velcro was caught on his sleeping pouch. This happens commonly, their nails get caught every now and then and it's not really a big deal, you just help them detatch really quick and everything is fine. Usually they don't even need help, they just shake around a bit.

So we opened up the cage and pulled him out and immediately it was much worse than we thought. His ankle was wrapped with a piece of loose thread, and the fabric around it was all fluffed out like Velcro had been scratching at it, causing the tangle to get worse. Ricky immediately went to get a pair of scissors while I held Velcro. After making several attempts to cut the fabric away, it became more and more clear that we needed a vet ASAP. The tangle was so bad and in his efforts to pull away from it, he had caused a fracture and the thread pulled tight enough to cut off the circulation to his foot. Once we had a close enough look at it to determine it was out of our hands, I left right away for the emergency clinic.

Once I got there I handed him to them immediately and explained that he was badly stuck, and they took him back right away. At this point I was standing all alone at this large empty clinic at 11:00 pm. Some lady happened to be in one of the rooms, her pet must have been in there too, and she came out to hand me a bunch of tissues. I probably had mascara all over my face lol.  I waited ten minutes and two techs came back out with him. They had successfully cut away the pouch, but his little foot was obviously a loss. Luckily it didn't seem to be bothering him. He didn't seem in pain because the foot had apparently gone numb. And he wasn't bugging it at all.

I thanked them and thanked them and thanked them and they sent me away free of charge, saying that there was nothing they could do to save the foot and I should take him to see an exotics vet ASAP during the day to get an amputation scheduled. But now that it was clearly a loss, there was no reason to get him in for an emergency surgery.

I drove back home and stayed with him all night to make sure he was OK. This morning, after my meeting at work, I called my exotics vet to get Velcro looked at. They put him under anesthesia so they could clean the foot and get it wrapped up, so that it wouldn't get caught on anything or contaminated with urine or something. He was awake again within 15 minutes and to my dismay, frantically tearing at the cast - already. I also noticed a little bit of blood on the cast so I showed the vet and they examined him again, and thankfully it was only because they clipped one of his nails a tiny bit too short and it was bleeding a small amount. And at that point, he had actually stopped messing with the cast!! I was so relieved. The doctor explained to me that usually within the first couple minutes of waking up from being under, the patient will thrash a little and mess with the cast, but then gets used to it. He told me that this was a good sign that Velcro would tolerate having a cast on after surgery too, which is more important to keep on then, than it is right now.

So, we scheduled surgery for Thursday and right now he's back with me at work. He took his pain meds and antibiotics very willingly - even the bitter antibiotics that the doctor said he might not like.

Velcro and I have a long road ahead of us.

[Reply #1 on:]

oh good luck with velcro! i hope he recovers quickly without too much fuss.

[Reply #2 on:]

Thanks Risu, Velcro is doing well today (he is with me... actually all 3 of my sugar gliders are hanging out under my desk, lol!) and I realized this morning that he has probably had difficulty accessing his water bottle in the cage, since getting his cast. So using the mL syringes that the vet gave me, I've been hand-feeding him water along with his meds to keep him hydrated. He takes everything willingly from the syringe, I think he really likes it lol.

[Reply #3 on:]

Velcro went into surgery yesterday to have the foot amputated and get neutered...

We survived our first night!

The ecollar stayed on, and although horribly awkward, Velcro was able to wobble around and he was quite active last night. I took away his wheel, but he was content to climb around and he didn't fall.

Even though the doctor said he most likely wouldn't have an appetite tonight, oh boy was he a little PIGGY!! I fed him about 4 cc of a veggie & fruit puree that I made, before my husband and I went to bed. Then during the night I fed him another 2 or 3 cc. I woke up about 4 times to go check on him, and sometimes he really wanted it, but sometimes didn't. Then first thing I did when I woke up this morning to get ready for work was feed him, and he had another 3 cc.

Now that we're at work, he just ate an additional 1.5 cc and looks like he'll want more! I'll probably give him a cc of water first before giving him more puree; but that has a lot of moisture in it too.

The poor guy went absolutely nuts last night trying to eat some pellets... but he only got a couple tiny ones and got so frustrated, I ended up taking them away.

[Reply #4 on:]

Just an update... after a lot of hardship and what I thought might be the end, Velcro has pulled through. I don't have time to go into detail right now but, it's pretty much a miracle I think. We're still recovering nicely, still on antibiotics. I won't introduce a new friend to him until he's completely healed of course. So we're just waiting

[Reply #5 on:]

Hmm... looks like it's time for another update!

Several months later, a lot has happened.

For a couple months we kept Velcro upstairs instead of the basement where I normally keep them. It's not uncomfortably cold for them down there - the temps are still acceptable but I was worried about Velcro because he was getting over an injury and had lost his mate already (they keep each other warm when they're asleep). Plus I would be able to walk out and have all the supplies nearby in the kitchen to feed and care for him, eliminating the process of walking up and down the stairs to get everything.

The ecollar was able to come off after about 3 weeks following surgery, and he didn't touch his neuter site OR his amputation site, much to my relief. From that point on he could feed himself and I could get some SLEEP!!

We came across a little speed-bump when I noticed that his leg bone had worked its way through his stitches a few days after that. I was terrified and extremely upset because I knew this meant a couple things. We could simply not afford another surgery to get him stitched back up and I was afraid for him to have to go under anesthesia again. I knew that if the skin kept working its way back up the bone, I'd have no choice, because we were at risk for infection with the bone exposed. And also, if he did have to wear the ecollar again, I was pretty sure I'd go insane with having to care for him during the nighttime hours, after a very exhausting 3 weeks of that routine. I spent a good hour or so on the couch sobbing while my husband reassured me that we had done everything we possibly could up to this point, and that no matter what we'd be able to work it out financially.

We went to the vet the following day and I explained to him the financial situation. To my surprise, the vet took every word to heart. I think that he could really see that I had tried my best to nurse Velcro back to health, and I'm sure it was clear to everyone there the amount of sleep I was lacking! He kindly told me that whatever we needed to do from there on out would be "Taken care of". I could not believe what I was hearing! After looking at the leg, he decided that putting Velcro under anesthesia again would be more of a risk than letting it heal on its own... so he administered some more antibiotics, told me what to watch out for, and sent us home.

The rest is history. It took a long time for the skin to finally work itself over the bone, but it happened. My mom let me have her sugar glider (who happens to be a daughter of Velcro and Skittles, the only little girl joey we ever had when we were still breeding gliders) so that Velcro could finally have company again, so we moved "Button" over here and he began hugging her immediately! It was the cutest thing. And today, I have finally put the wheel back in their cage - satisfied that Velcro is recovered enough to begin using it again!

It has definitely been a challenging year for mister Velcro but he has pulled through with flying colors, and I'm glad.

[Reply #6 on:]

Oh wow, I think I must have missed this topic for quite a while. I'm really glad Velcro made it through all of that!   I think I would have completely freaked out a few times if I were in your shoes.

I couldn't picture a sugar glider wearing one of the ecollars, but google fixed that for me. He really must have hated the ecollar. Especially for the amount of time he had it on.

[Reply #7 on:]

He freaked out for the first few minutes or so, but after that, suprisingly he just put up with it. I could tell he wasn't thrilled; he just didn't want to fight it anymore. The hardest part about that was that he couldn't feed or drink by himself. It all had to be done by hand at least once every 2 hours. I had to make sure he got plenty of moisture because gliders dehydrate really easily.