This is beautiful Mama, a female Brown Anole lizard who lives in our deck planter next to the lanai. Mama has a husband, we named Papa.They are well known to us because they are the only lizard couple we have ever seen. We would comment about how close they were, always together, side by side sitting on the rim of the planter overlooking their domain, watching the sun go down before Papa departed to go down for the night, and Mama put herself to bed in the plantar under the flowers. One day on October 10th, 2012, Mama got inside our screen lanai, and Scouty our cat batted her as hard as he could against the screen, knocked her to the pavers, picked her up in his mouth, and ran like the dickens with her inside. I screamed, my husband went into save mode,Scouty dropped her from his mouth, and she managed to get under a piece of furniture. We knew right away it was our Mama. Mama is recognizable because of her coloring, skin imperfections (around her neck) and she is a little fatso. I believe she is older. I was devastated. John my husband put her back in her planter carefully choosing his words about her condition and from his tone it wasn't good. She was paralyzed from the waist down. A visible puncture wound directly over her trunk vertebrae on her mid back more to one side than the other. Oh so sad. How would she survive? That's when my nursing skills kicked in and right away I googled everything I could find on the subject which wasn't much. Could she regain the ability to use her legs? What about her bowels how would she go to the bathroom if she was paralyzed? How would she hunt? How would she climb, run, walk? Would Papa protect her? There just wasn't much information on it but one article studying how Lizards regenerate lost tails and how scientists are looking at this to see how it can benefit humans with spinal cord injuries.The next few weeks broke our hearts but she was a trooper still trying to carry on like nothing was wrong. Because she could not use her back legs (the right looked more flaccid) she would drag along using her front legs. She could not hold herself up on her front legs to hunt or even see to hunt so she would get in the grass and use it to hold herself upright where she would sit for hours waiting for a bug to fly by. To drink she would drag herself over to the bird water dish (the botton of a clay pot)and pull herself up using her front legs. She was carrying on as if nothing had happened, a huge inspiration to us that would bring tears to our eyes. She could not climb to get up in her planter she loved that overlooks the pool area and where she suns herself on the rim, her husband ignored her, and others began to take her territory over. This is when we created a handicap home for her complete with ramps still outside though because she was not comfortable captive. It was like a handicap condo for our princess lizard, in the same area as her planter but a vacant spot others did not use. We used nature elements to give her hiding spots at ground level, and provided her food and water. I became her security guard and chased out any lizard who tried to invade her space or get near her. We purchased mealy worms and crickets at the pet store. She was afraid of the crickets and would not touch them. They moved too quick for her. The only thing she would eat was mealy worms, and boy did she love them. Every other day, I would catch her (it was very easy) and soak her in warm water, rubbing her belly till she had a bowel movement. I also used neosporin without pain med and a diluted betadine wash to clean her wound on her back so she would not get infected from the cat claw wound. I would gently do range of motion to her flaccid skinny back legs. About a week to ten days later she lost her tail. It had a hard time coming off because she was paralyzed. It just didn't drop off like they normally do when a predator causes them to use this defense mechanism. Now her balance was even worse and many times she would just fall over on to her back and struggle to return upright, but, she never gave up. Her wound healed over and was a white bump that eventually turned to a black scar. One day I couldn't find her. I was looking and looking and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her floating in the pool. Oh my God! Mama there you are! And as I waded in to get her she was floating with her back legs straight out positioned like this due to the paralysis, she turned her head and looked straight at me as if she was saying thank you it's about time. Most likely the other lizards had chased her in as they were being mean to her. I read that on day 20 or 21 there was at least one study that showed regeneration and a gain in movement in paralyzed lizards. It is odd but exactly on this day, I could stimulate her to move her back legs and this is the exact time we noticed a bit of tail regeneration too. From that day on, each week with the growth of her tail came more and more movement of her back legs. We kept feeding her mealy worms and luckily by the time it got colder at night she was strong enough to dig herself into her warm spot. The right leg was always a little worse and even that was getting better. I stopped having to assist her with her bowels about the 3rd week, and she began to hold herself up again on her front paws around the two month mark. Every week after this her legs have gotten more motion in sync with the growth of her tail. They no longer are straight out and flaccid but 4 months later she is able to use the full range of motion. She is running quicker, is able to hold on to things in a sideways position, catching bugs on her own, and fully moving both legs, but she still is using the ramps to get up into her planter, and we haven't seen her able to climb the screen or tree trunk yet like she use to do before injury. We still are supplemental her diet with mealy worms but think it's time to wean her off these feedings. Today it was a nice day and her hubby joined her on the planter where she has regained as her territory.
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10/15/2012 - you can see her puncture wound on her back, it is bruised around it. Hunting using the grass and paver to help hold her up
11/11/2012 holding her head up. Tail starting to grow.
11/22/2012 doing better. still can see her scar on her back. tail growing out.
