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So last night I found my leopard gecko had died. It was around 1 am and I had gotten back upstairs from getting a midnight snack. I smelled something funny and realized I hadn't seen Eragon in a few days so I went to check in on him. He's been in a bad way for a long while. When he was shedding, I accidentally poked out his eye. We washed it and cleaned it and it seemed okay, he just didn't have sight in that eye. But a few months ago his eye started to have weird goop in it. We couldn't find any vet that would help with reptiles so we had to go it alone. His other eye started getting infected as well: I tried my best to keep them from getting infected, but he kept doing things that would make it worse. This was all during the time we were in a small rental and having to save up money. One high medical bill could mean we could lose the house we were building. Plus my little sister had already injured herself quite badly and had become immobile her whole first semester of her freshman year (her first year of high school) so we did not have money to spare. We finally got into our new house in December and Eragon just started going over the deep-end quick. He couldn't see out of either eye, he didn't eat any of his mealworms and let them die. I even tried feeding him myself and he gagged when the food got close to him. He started to not remove his shed and gnaw on his tail. We tried to make him as comfortable as possible, because we knew he wasn't going to make it much longer. Each day I found he was alive made me happy, but also sad. I didn't want him suffering anymore but I didn't know how to make it stop. He pushed on for a long long while and I'm amazed he made it that long. It was probably because he kept himself hydrated and I made sure to fill his tray with water. That was the only thing he would take. But I was busy this week trying to get things done by the due date. I didn't really check on him as much till last night. I usually had to shake the tank some to wake him up just to make sure he was Alive. But he didn't wake up this time and I could just tell he was gone... if you ever want a leopard gecko, just know that they can easy get many things that could kill them, including their own shed. My friend's gecko died of brain cancer a few months after she got him. My other friend's gecko died of the same thing mine did. They are easy to take care of but they come with a lot of medical complication that can be very expensive to fix. Reptile vets are expensive and sometimes doesn't even help the animal live. Just do your research and prepare as much as you can for these things to happen. I loved my gecko to death, but he only lived for four years, almost five. Their 'normal' life expectancy is ten to fifteen years, but many do not live to those dates.
