Kyle: Superdragon!

Kuleana Graeme Squishee, my marvellous, grumpy lizard turned out to be a genuine superdragon.

As most of you know, she was struck down mysteriously ill a couple of weeks ago, and I've been fighting to keep her going in an effort to identify the cause and cure her.

Sadly, she passed away today, but her blood test results finally came back and the vet was astounded: A normal uric acid count for lizards: 300, lethal: 3000. Kyle had been running for at least a week at SIX THOUSAND.

They think she had an undiagnosed congenital kidney defect all her life, and the vet was particularly astounded as she managed to keep fighting for another 20 days - even after her kidneys had completely failed.

It does explain a lot about her though; from her funny barrel shape, her grumpy days, the perpetual pickiness with food, to her unique, familiar Kyle smell; sweet, warm and acid like lemon drops and mangrove wood. I now understand that this was caused by ketones, an indicator of possible kidney disease or diabetes, among other things.

Either way, it was a relief to know I couldn't have done more even if I had known, and it was nice to know that I had done all the right things for her throughout her life! In fact, I'm glad I didn't know, as it meant I wasn't permanently worrying and waiting for the worst.



I'd like to thank everyone for their support and kind words, especially my family, and the people I have never even met before (thanks to the internet) who gave sage advice such as:

"Treat tomorrow like a gift to come - it's exciting and you have no idea what's going to be in it. That's why they call today 'The present'." and "Tough times never last, but tough people do."

I have a lot of people to be grateful to, not least Kyle herself. Though I'm amused that she taught Tsam how to do the "Flying Pancake" technique... A remarkable skill, where she could instantly flatten out and skid along the carpet whilst "running" at full speed, enabling her to vanish under the bed. Bloody frustrating lizards!

Clearly she was smart, but the x-rays don't show that she had a brain... Hehehehe!