Regurgitating Juvenile

[isaacr]

Okay, here goes my first real thread.

First, an introduction is in order (to the snake that is). Nikko is my ever so young normal (I think) cornsnake. I'm guessing she's female by what I judge to be a pretty quick tapering of the tail. I'll have her probed when she's bigger. Anyway, I bought her from Jack's Aquarium in Findlay, Ohio. Their corns were kept about a dozen to a ten gallon tank. They had one temp gauge and no hygrometer. They use sand substrate that was full of little poop piles, and one tiny little water dish. They also had no hide at all. Just a piece of small driftwood. I later realized, that this is all pretty bad husbandry. But, I inspected her thoroughly for mites and ticks, blister disease, curling, etc. before buying her. She was also very active and alert (lots of tongue flicking) with no aggressiveness.
I got her home to her 20 gal. long tank in which I had placed reptibark bedding about 2 inches deep along with a fairly sizeable stone water dish (on the cool side), a half-log hide, a piece of driftwood and a plastic "canyon stone" thing that she could climb on or hide under. The right side is the hot side, so I put the little canyon stone thing there so she had a warm hide/basking area, the log hide was in the middle. Thermometers on both ends and a hygrometer in the middle. Also an undertank heat pad on the warm side. Temps were a gradient of 75cool-85hot. I left her alone for 2 days (as long as I could stand) then got her out and handled her a bit. She was very calm, but curious and explorative too. Next day, I offered a pinky which she struck immediately and gulped down with gusto. All seems to be going well I think. Meanwhile I read up on all kinds of stuff on corns, books, magazines, internet, etc.
A month goes by and she goes into her blue. A couple days after her eyes cleared up, she started to shed. She got the head off pretty easy, but she couldn't get the rest off very well, so I put her in a small plastic cheap terrarium with a rock (that was oven baked to kill any parasites prior) and a little fake vine thing and about half an inch of lukewarm water. She doesn't really like water, but she couldn't really avoid it in there, so she got a good soak and as she crawled about in the vine and on the rock everything came off in big pieces. I checked her head shed to make sure the eyes came off okay; they did. I looked her over and the rest had all come off okay too, so I left her alone for a few days. Just a few days before the shed she lost her appetite and refused a meal, but when she went blue, I figured that it was just because of the impending shed, so I didn't freak. 3 days after the shed, she refused again. ( I feed her with 10" long tongs that look like big tweezers) Okay she'll get her appetite back after she's recovered from th stress of shedding. I took her to the vet for a check-up/exam deal.(Dr. Reichard of Toledo, Ohio's Bird and Exotic Pet Wellness Center. The Toledo Zoo's head vet for 20 years, and a professor of exotic vet stuff at the University of Toledo. Highly recommended as the best herp vet around. Also the highest prices, but not by much.) Fecal tests negative for parasites mouth looks fine, etc., etc. Clean bill of health, but he told me to keep her quarantined for the first 6 months in case something showed up, which he says can happen easily, since some infections and such don't really manifest right away. No problem, we just got our second corn from a different store where she had her own cage and was well cared for, and I bought a smaller 10 gallon set up for her just like Nikko's except smaller.
3 days more; refused again. Finally, she took one, only to regurgitate it the next day. Now I don't handle her for 48 hours after feeding, and we keep the noise and such pretty low in our apartment, so I know she wasn't stressed from any of that. ????
So I go searching forums trying to figure it out, and I keep seeing that sometimes they just don't eat for a couple weeks and then they're fine again. Okay, don't panic, wait it out, keep offering. Finally a month goes by with no food, and the last meal she took was regurgitated. She's puny now, and weak. I tried one last time and she took it, then puked it up a few hours later. Next day Dr. Reichard insists she come in right away. I take her in and he checks her out (she went from 15.7 grams to 8 grams in weight!). He says it's likely a bacterial infection from the petstore, since I clean her cage out every 2 weeks completely sanitizing everything, and I spot clean her poop daily, give her cool fresh water daily, mist daily, etc. We raised her basking area up to 90 degrees too. Still 75 on the cool end. Anyway, he shows me how to give her antibiotic shots and gives me a tube to put on a syringe and feed her this powdered stuff thats all proteins and fats and carbs and such. Mix it with warm water into a paste and give it to her, blah, blah. Pretty simple as long as you have someone to hod her properly while you do it. Which I do. He also offered to do it for me as needed if I was uncomfortable with it or anything, but I've been doing it since with no problems. (I was hard up for cash since I'm a college student and broke most of the time, so he gave me 30 days of antibiotics plus another fecal exam, plus the office visit, plus, the food, plus the tube for $45 US. Love this vet!!!)
Anyway, Ive given her 2 more injections of antibiotics and tube fed her 3 times. The first tube feeding she puked some of it, but not all. The second one, she puked a tiny little bit, but passed the rest. The 3rd round she kept down, so he gave me the okay to try feeding her a pinky yesterday. I did, and she gulped it down fast!!! So far no puking.

So, am I doing okay here? Is there something I should've done and didn't? Anything I could do better in the future? Any advice at all is MOST welcome. I don't mind criticism, as long as it helps me take care of my baby better.
The second corn we bought about a month ago, Sheh, is doing fine by the way. In fact she's a little hyperactve pig that would eat anything you threw at her! She's an Anery type 1 I think.
Thoughts?