grr.

Between my car troubles (which are apparently now fixed, for the time being) and now my snake, I'm going to scream bloody hell murder from the rooftops.

I came home tonight and went into my bedroom to check on Charlie. Earlier this week, I'd attempted another feeding and she refused it, so I've been keeping a close eye on her and was going to call the vet on Monday about bringing her in to be looked at. My normal evening routine, check the snake and then go feed the other animals.

She was inside her coconut, which isn't all that unusual, but something told me to actually open the tank and peer in at her. Just a little tickle in the back of my brain, I reckon. I picked up her hide and she didn't really much react to me. Not incredibly different from her normal behavior, she's pretty used to me by now. When I picked her up, she didn't wrap around my wrist like she always does.

Cue a small bit of panic.

Upon closer inspection, I noticed she had a small swollen area just above her cloaca/anal scale. Maybe just under an inch long.

More small bits of panic.

I got out her plastic container and ran some tepid water in it. I'd read before that soaks were good if they had a wee blockage and hadn't been able to move their bowels. So, in the container she went and on the phone I went. I called Tony and then Jill's sister. Both of whom recommended that I do what I was already doing, but beyond that she should go to the vet. Unfortunately, it was nine o'clock at night when all of this went on and my vet was already closed for the night.

Yes, I called the office anyway. And got their answering machine, as I expected.

I sat with her at the computer desk and after she'd soaked for a good while, I took her out to see if anything had changed. No such luck. So I started gently rubbing her belly in the hopes that maybe this would get things moving and that whatever was blocking her up would pass.

This resulted in her eventually peeing on me and passing a tiny green thing about the size and shape of a baby pea. Interesting. Further rubbing produced no other effect, so we sat at the desk for a while and I had a talk with her about how crazy this is making me and how I didn't want another snake, I wanted her. She didn't seem to much listen and instead, stared at me and occasionally flicked her tongue in my direction. She let me do basically whatever I wanted, other than touch her head. Any touching of that area caused much head jerking away. Which is good because it shows she's not incredibly far gone. Yet. She seemed alert, her eyes were still bright, and her coloring was still good. She was just limp, with a swollen butt.

Later, I put her back in her tank and after a moment, she crawled right back into her coconut.

Tomorrow, I am getting up at stupid o'clock and calling the vet. She needs to be seen.

I'm sure this is some sort of blockage; I can't really think of anything else it could be. But, what the hell kind of blockage? She hasn't eaten for me since July, therefore it couldn't be anything related to that and it couldn't be ingestion of bedding. So, I'm stumped. And very fucking concerned, especially because of the just hanging limply and not wrapping around my arm for support. That's not cool at all.

I meant it, what I said to her. About not wanting another snake and wanting her. The pet store had told me a while back to return her and they would get me another baby, but I don't want another baby. Charlie is mine. A replacement snake isn't going to change the bond I've already developed with her.

I am going to be one unhappy girl if this ends badly.

It's all I can do to not keep checking on her, but I don't want to stress her out. Tomorrow's trip to the vet is going to be bad enough.