A Love Story of a Very Different Kind: Part 4

When we inadvertently hurt the ones we love most

“If I miss you any harder, my heart might come looking for you.” — Gemma Troy

In Parts 1 through 3, I shared the story of how and why I fell in love with my little pal, Bob, pictured above having a morning cuddle with Mummy. I’ve shared some of his antics and what made him so special, although to be honest, you’d have had to meet him to truly appreciate his unique character and energy.

I’ve also shared that every snake breeder or vet who ever met Bob commented on how bright and curious he was, and how attached he was to me. Although snakes do bond with their owners, it was easy to see that Bob and I had a much deeper and more special connection than is usual.

Many people would have no idea that snakes are sentient beings. But as I explained in Part 1, there are a lot of similarities between snakes and humans. Snakes are vertebrates with all the same organs that we have. They can get cancer. They can get arthritis. They can get cataracts, heart disease, and stress-related illnesses. They have adrenal glands, hormones, and an endocrine system. And although it isn’t common, they can even become diabetic.

In so many ways they’re like you and I, like your cat or hamster. They just don’t have limbs or external ears.

Affected by their surroundings? Yes. Capable of feelings? Absolutely. Just like dogs can be excited to see someone they know or they can be angry and snap at someone they don’t like. Animals have feelings and memories just like we do. Well, snakes are animals, and they have feelings and memories, too.

This short, emotional video has me in tears every time…two horses separated for almost a decade are reunited. I dare you to watch it and think animals are incapable of emotions.

My Little Buddy

I have written plenty here about my traumatic childhood. I’ve shared a lot about how toxic childhood beliefs led to a tumultuous adult life that included multiple divorces and a diagnosis of Complex PTSD.

I’ve written about various aspects of my long healing journey. And I was still in the thick of it when I met my beloved little Bob.

I don’t want to bog you down with too many details of what was happening in my personal life, or why, because it will derail us from the point of this story. So please forgive me if certain aspects seem unclear or disjointed; I will do my best to make my points without confusing you.

For various reasons, Bob was the only one of my pets I took with me on moving from Canada to England. And Willow was the only one of my children to accompany me. Although I was embarking on a new life and (yes, another) new marriage and everything should have been exciting and wonderful, there were ongoing massive family issues and crises that affected me even though I was on the other side of the planet.

All was well when we first got to England, although Bob’s stress showed in the first couple of sheds he had. They were difficult, his skin coming off in bits and pieces and generally indicating that all was not right in his world. Finally, several months on, he had a much more normal one — just before we moved to another part of England.

Throughout Bob’s years with me to that point, he had always been either in my bedroom or my office, the two places in which I spent the majority of my time. On making that second move with Bob, my (now former) husband and I put his tank (and Fluffy’s — we had just got him not long before moving) in my husband’s office. Their tanks were on one wall, and my husband’s desk was on the opposite wall, facing away from the boys. He worked from home a lot, plus spent endless hours at his desk doing computer projects in his off-hours.

The boys spent a lot of time looking at my husband’s back!

We were busy renovating the cottage (which I’ve discussed about discovering that we had a very active ghost living with us) and shortly after moving in, I had to return to Canada for several weeks when my father was dying. There were more challenges on returning but for the sake of this story, let’s just say that Bob’s and my first year (plus) in England were more than a little stressful.

Not long after I returned to England, I was aware that Bob had gone off his food. Normally, every ten days to two weeks he ate one good-sized rat (already dead; not good to feed snakes live animals and I couldn’t do it anyway).

At that time, I was using a child’s booster seat as a hideout. All snakes need a place to hide, as I outlined in Part 1; it is essential for their emotional and physical health and wellbeing. When all was right in Bob’s world, he spent a good part of his days “sitting in his chair” — the top of the booster seat:

But all was not right in his world. He was virtually always in his hideout. When I’d walk past the boys’ tanks, he was nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t been in his chair for ages.

A few weeks after I got back from Canada, something terrified me. One night, Bob was racing around and around his tank, circling the perimeter over and over again, hissing, hissing, hissing. He was obviously distressed or perhaps in pain. I’d never seen anything like it. He carried on like that for about an hour before suddenly disappearing into his hideout.

It was time to go to the vet.

Blood tests and a physical exam revealed nothing. Bob was losing weight. The vet didn’t know why. For two months, every other day I had to make the 40-mile round-trip journey to the vet to have a tube shoved down Bob’s throat so he could be force-fed liquid nutrition. Can I just say…he detested being in his travel box; it was massively stressful for him — and he was none too impressed with the force-feeding, either. Can’t say I blame him.

We reached a point where the vet said he must have a rare or unknown reptile virus or illness. He said if we couldn’t get Bob to eat in another week, we would need to consider putting him down. It wasn’t fair to make him live like this.

I couldn’t even begin to imagine doing that to my little Bob; nor could I imagine continuing as we were. Completely distraught, I told a friend about this in tears. I was stunned when she referred me to an animal communicator in Florida, saying maybe he could help.

I remember years earlier, hearing about animal communicators and thinking the idea was ridiculous. What’s even more ridiculous is that since I was a kid, I’ve been a psychic and medium, communicating with spirits and connecting with energy. Why did I think animal communication was silly?

Anyway, I was desperate. Figured I’d give it a try. I set up an appointment with this man — Mason — on the phone. As soon as he tuned in to Bob’s energy, the first thing he said was, “Bob says he misses you.”

I said, “What? I don’t understand. I’m here all the time!”

“He says he never sees you anymore. He used to be with you most of the day and now he’s in another room.”

My jaw hit my lap.

“And he says Dad spends most of his time with his back to him.”

Oh, my God. There’s only one way he could know that. Bob is really talking to him.

We talked back and forth — Bob and I, through Mason, and at the end of it, he said that if I put him where he could be with me more, he would eat three days later.

That night, my husband and I moved the boys into our bedroom. Sure enough, Bob ate a big fat rat three days later. All was well and he was back in his chair most of the time, or perhaps playing in his log or curled up around his rock.

I felt so bad about having neglected my little buddy. He had always been there when I needed a little cuddle and I used to spend hours talking to him, sometimes just chattering away to him about my patients and asking him what he thought I should give them…as if he could really hear me.

And since moving to the cottage, my life was taken over by other things and I had let him down badly. Forgiving soul that he was, he still loved his Mummy and was happy for cuddles.

However, I would soon learn that my ongoing, turbulent emotional life would take a toll on him that I could never have imagined.

Continued in Part 5:

Lucy Socha shares some great information about how to make good bone broth without paying the outrageous prices some people are charging for it:

Parts 1–4 here:

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