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She comes in long, goes out shorter

About a foot of not-so-tiny Tiny's tail needed to be trimmed to keep an infection from spreading further.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published December 31, 2005

	[Times photos: Stefanie Boyar]
	Dr. Nicolas Maldonado, a resident avian and exotics specialist at the Florida Veterinary Specialists, operates on Tiny, a 170-pound albino Burmese python on Friday. The 5-year-old, 17-foot snake needed surgery to remove an infected portion of her tail.
	After the surgery, Dr. Maldonado encourages Tiny to breathe on her own. For the surgery, the snake was under anesthetic and had a breathing tube.

TAMPA - If it can fit through the door at Florida Veterinary Specialists, a doctor will see it.

They've had an iguana that ate its owner's underwear and a cat that stowed away from China.

So Tiny, a 17-foot albino Burmese python who arrived coiled in a crate on Friday for tail surgery, was just another day's work. Sort of.

It took 12 people to hold down the 170-pound snake so she could be sedated.

"They didn't teach you how to wrestle snakes in business school," said Jeff Fox, operations manager at the hospital, who pitched in.

The snake developed discoloration from an infection in her tail about a week ago, said Dr. Nicolas Maldonado, avian and exotic species specialist resident at the hospital. Her owner brought her in for an evaluation, and doctors decided to operate.

Maldonado amputated close to a foot of Tiny's tail Friday morning.

"It went better than I expected," he said after the two-hour procedure. "This is pretty straightforward surgery. This is like amputating the tail on a dog. The cool thing about it is it's a snake. Amputations happen every day."

But none exactly like this.

Maldonado said Tiny will be well enough to go home today. But she will stay for a few days at the hospital because her owner is out of town.

Once home, she'll need to take antibiotics through an injection. She's in a bit of pain, Maldonado said, but she'll be back to her normal self in about a week.

Vets at the hospital wouldn't say how much a surgery like the one for Tiny costs but called it "an investment." An albino Burmese python can live to be 10 to 20 years old, Maldonado said. Males tend to live longer.

As large as she is, Tiny could grow a few more feet, Maldonado said. He'll recommend to her owner that the amputated part of her tail be tested to find out what might have caused the infection. Since there were no signs of trauma, Maldonado said the infection was likely caused by some kind of clot that kept blood from flowing to the end of her tail.

If doctors hadn't amputated, the infection could have spread and killed Tiny.

To own a nonvenomous snake like Tiny does not require a permit in Florida.

Florida Veterinary Services, at 3000 Busch Lake Blvd., seems to bring in the kind of patients that keep people talking around the water cooler.

There was the duck with the prosthetic beak. The cockatoo that had a diamond earring lodged in its gizzard for 10 years. The iguana that ate its owner's green thong underwear.

They took care of the cat shipped from China to Florida and thought to have been trapped in a metal container for more than 30 days. And occasionally, the celebrity comes through the door. Fox said the hospital used to give checkups to the cougar used in Mercury car commercials.

This spring, Florida Veterinary Specialists managers plan to open New York City Veterinary Specialists and Cancer Treatment Center, fashioned after the Tampa hospital.

Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 31, 2005, 00:47:16]