Late yesterday afternoon I received a call from Darwin's veterinarian: he had just completed the spay and was reporting back with the outcome. Darwin quickly went under when she was given anesthetic (about half the dose given to the average iguana). Several eggs the size of gum balls (the ones that typically cost a 50 cents apiece) were removed along with her reproductive organs. The vet said he put the eggs into cold storage so I could take a look when I came to pick her up. According to him, she was just days away from laying her eggs and because of that the he claimed to have had a bit of a difficult time extracting them. With only the x-rays to go by a week ago he didn't think the eggs had even formed a shell. So, this came as a surprise for both of us. Darwin was at first groggy when they revived her, but she resumed breathing on her own without any difficulty. When she was more with it she tried to jump off the table. She stayed overnight in a warm incubator.
I anxiously awaited to hear from the vet this morning to see how she was when she woke up. When I got the call the her vet told me she was "spunky" (in other words, aggressive) and that it would probably be best for her that we come and get her. When we had checked outside to see how our car did in the hurricane that hit us last night (Isabel) there was a rather large tree downed during the storm that blocked the entire entrance to our building's parking lot. I told the vet that one of my neighbors was working to saw off the top of the tree to clear a path and that we would be there as soon as possible. It wasn't too long before we were on the road headed out there. The vet had warned me that Darwin would appear "deflated" when I saw her. I was prepared for much worse. She looked much better than some of the iguanas I had encountered on the Internet after they were spayed. She's a very healthy girl. The tech brought her out wrapped up in a bath towel so as to protect herself from the wrath of very unhappy lizard. I stroked Darwin on her dewlap and she eventually shut her mouth which had been open, poised to bite stray fingers. The vet showed me his handwork (the stitches and the zip lock baggie filled with bio hazardous materials), we paid, and set off for home.
