Only no one is really sure it will work, because he's a snake, and this was apparently the first time anyone had zapped one with high-energy radiation therapy.
Dogs and cats and people, yes. But it isn't every day that someone strolls through the glass doors of Penn's Matthew J. Ryan Veterinary Hospital carrying a big Rubbermaid container, a 6-1/2-foot South American predator coiled inside.
The story begins in March, when zookeepers noticed a grayish growth on the skin of the anaconda, which the zoo got from an animal dealer in 1981. They didn't know if it was an infection, an abscess, or what.
The vets at Penn took a biopsy, and the news was not good. Squamous-cell carcinoma, right near the animal's vent - an opening through which it excretes waste.
An X-ray showed the tumor had spread to the spine, so surgery was out. There was also an infection because some of the tissue in the tumor was dead: fertile ground for bacteria.
The vets started the snake on antibiotics and cleaned out the tumor. Back at the zoo, he seemed to be doing well, keeping up his 15-pound weight on a diet of dead rats.
The keepers were then told that the anaconda would need radiation to reduce his tumor - for which he'd need to remain motionless. They practiced putting him into a six-foot, flexible plastic tube to hold him still.
At the zoo, in a quiet environment with just two keepers handling him, it worked.
At the hospital Thursday, Sir Mix-A-Lot had other ideas.
The problem was twofold: The environment was chaotic, and his sedative didn't take.
Here's why: A reptile's body temperature fluctuates with its surroundings, and its rate of metabolism and circulation change accordingly.
So unlike with warm-blooded animals, deciding how much sedative to give a snake is a bit of a guessing game, even when a heating pad helps maintain its body temperature.
