So striking…so stunning the transformation

It is always with deep consideration what I decide to share outside the walls of the exam room. I fully realize I am invited into an often very personal relationship with sensitive topics, emotions, and sharing. If you see yourself in my stories or writing, please know that you, your pet, and/or our experience together affected me such that I desired to reflect and share. So it was with hesitation that I share this, but I was so touched, so taken and found such tragic beauty in this experience I felt it was worth sharing.

The call came, a very sick young Chameleon needed medical attention. My experience with Chameleons is limited but thankfully though true exotic veterinarians are more rare than plentiful, most are very helpful in sharing their knowledge.

I found a frail, faded young Chameleon with a young boy and his mother behind the exam room door. The Chameleon was young, a faded tan with stripes of muted green with hints of gray. Chameleons are well know for “changing” their skin color but in fact have four layers of skin with different pigmentations. It is the blending of these layers that create their color. Her entire body fit in the palm of a hand. She was so small and light, the wash cloth she was wrapped in provided the only real substance registered when she was held. Their concern for this little creature was great but she was clearly very sick.

After diagnostics and discussions of treatment options and prognosis.  The prognosis looked so poor and so the boy stoically agreed with his mother by his side and tears streaming down his cheeks to say goodbye to his little friend.

Admittedly, I have never euthanized a Chameleon before. I gave the sedation to make her sleep with the smallest gauge needle into her tiny muscle. The green and tan were replaced by a deep muddy brown, as if a flower wilted and died so suddenly before my eyes in such a profound transformation. While this is known to occur, I was so taken by this transformation I had to fight the tears. I finished her goodbye and handed this frail, wilted dead flower of a creature back to her grieving boy.

It was such a profound change, so beautiful yet so tragic. That outward bodily change to physically darken was so encompassing of the grief in that moment. When our hearts feel the darkness of grief and sadness, how awe-inspiring is nature to allow this little Chameleon to transform, for Nature to choose her color of death. Where once there was vibrance, now lie the physical picture of darkness in death and grief.

“The dance between darkness and light will always remain— the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars.”
― C. JoyBell C.