Meet Spike

Meet Spike! He is the newest addition to the DeMoor Zoo and entered our family with much drama. Brooke got a large terrarium for Christmas that would be used to hold her new bearded dragon. When the reptile show came to Sarasota in February, Steve and Brooke made the trip to find the perfect bearded dragon. Brooke describes it as love at first sight. She looked at a few dragons before finding the perfect "Spike". She rode all the way home with him on her knee and when they made it back to Orlando, Spike even got to go camping with us that night. The next day, Brooke was riding a friend's scooter at the campground and Spike was in the scooter basket. She stumbled on the scooter and fell off and Spike was hurt badly. He was bleeding in a few places and Brooke was devastated (understatement). Steve took a good look at him and determined that he was dead and we broke the news to Brooke. It was heartbreaking. She had grown so attached in such a short time, and now he was gone. We packed up our things and headed home. When we got back to the house we were unloading the car and Steve took one last look at Spike before disposing of him. To our surprise he was moving! It was amazing. We were torn between telling Brooke the news and putting Spike out of his misery. Even though we was obviously still alive, he was so badly injured. Steve ultimately decided to tell Brooke and give her and honest prognosis that he might not make it. They put him in his tank and Brooke prayed for Spike to pull through. We started out by hand feeding Spike his crickets. Brooke would pry open his mouth while Steve or I popped a cricket in there. Day by day it was amazing to watch his progress and Steve and I were amazed that this was the same lizard who we thought was dead a few days ago.

As of today, Spike is now almost fully recovered. He hunts his own crickets now and his only remaining injury is his left eye, where he is most likely blind. I'd say he is not likely to regain vision in that eye, but this lizard has already proved us wrong so many times. It's been so amazing to watch his progress and to watch Brooke's faith and enthusiasm for this little creature. Just another adventure in parenthood that I never would have expected. God uses my children to teach me so many lessons. The faith of a child is an amazing thing.