Elderly Leopard Gecko Surgery

[Alixmarieva]

Hello all,

I’m hoping to get some insight over a difficult situation I’m dealing with.

I’ve moved to Central America and left my Leo with a reputable reptile store until I’m able to bring him down.

I have recently managed to find a good company to help bring him down, only now it looks like he’s lost a lot of weight very fast. He was brought to the vet and they found a lump on his right side in his body cavity.

I’m going to have it looked at to see what it is exactly. I’m just worried about the next step and likelihood of needing surgery to remove it.

It looks like he’s having trouble breathing now as the lump is pushing on his lungs.

He’s about 20 years old this spring and has been in great health otherwise. Still active and eating, although he’s being fed by syringe since he got cataracts this summer (his eyes look clear now though and it looks like he can see again- he just seems to prefer eating grub pie now and also loves being babied).

I’m wondering if anyone else has had gone through surgery with an older leopard gecko. The vet informed me that reptiles don’t do well with anesthesia, and since he has gotten so much weaker and he is older, it’s a high chance that he won't survive during or after the surgery.

He is on injected antibiotics but it's not looking like they're helping, therefor I feel like my options are to do the surgery and he might not make it, but maybe he can, and then it would take about 4 months for him to recover and gain enough weight back to be able to make the trip here, or not do the surgery and put him to sleep as he won’t survive in his current condition.

Has anyone else had to put their older Leo under for surgery?

Thank you,
Alix

 

[LZRDGRL]

Hi Alix, if he's 20 years old, I would spare him the surgery and let him live until quality of life declines, and then have him humanely euthanized. Sorry to say that, but he's had an amazing long life and been loved. If you pay a lot to have the surgery and he suffers and dies, you haven't really helped him. The risk might be bigger than the benefit. Also, the long trip down to you might be too much for him. Do you have a good friend who could just pamper him and keep him until the end? I had to make a similar decision. I had two lovely big Labrador Retrievers, whom I had since they were young (one was a 7.5-weeks-old puppy). They usually live 10-11 years. Well, they were 14 and 13, one was almost blind and had cancer with open sores, and the other had hip dysplasia and couldn't walk anymore in the end. Last summer, I had to move to Germany from the United States, where we had been for the past 15 years. Due to Covid, I was not allowed to take my elderly, sickly dogs with me, and it broke my heart (and that of my little son), but I had to leave them behind with good friends. They cared for my doggies lovingly, and they died half a year later. Had I been allowed to ship them to Europe, they would have had to undergo a lengthy quarantine at a harbor, and they surely would not have survived that and would have wondered where their mommy was. Here's their story: https://lyonessandcub.com/2021/04/11/raise-a-puppy/
I know you love your old leo, like I loved my old doggies, and it's heart wrenching that we can't do more, but if it's cancer, you probably cannot help him anymore. (Did you get a biopsy?) I'm for something like "hospice" for animals; just palliative care and love, until it's time to go. Of course, you have to make the decision; I can just tell you what I have done. And it wasn't easy. Good luck, and congratulations for having had him for so long! What a good boy.