I had a my first ever beardie die on me. I had noticed he wasn't eating much, and I would have thought he was just brumating, if I hadn't seen the weird circle on his tummy, it was a different colour to the rest of his white or yellow scales. There isn't a Reptile vet in my town, we'd rang and checked but they referred us to the West Toowoomba Vet, as the man there worked with reptiles also. So the next day we took Custard to the vet out there, and after we got there (it was an hour trip) we left him with the doctor there, and it was really hard leaving him there, as I didn't know what was wrong with him, and the doctor said he hadn't seen anything like it before...
The next day I called up and asked how my beardie was going, and he said he appeared to be fine, and that he'll call me as soon as he knows more. The next day he called me up and told me that my beardie had passed away, and I was literally lost for words, and I was crying, I had to give mum the phone to talk for me.
The doctor said that he still wasn't sure as to what was wrong as he had never seen anything like it, and he asked if he could do a biopsy and I allowed him, and he still didn't know what it was, he took samples to the uni he taught at and found it he had an abscess on his tummy but he wasn't sure what caused it.
Sorry about the huge story here, but basically then and there, I was thinking about giving up on reptiles, especially since he was my first one (I'd had him for 2 years). Anyway, 5 weeks later, mum came back from brisbane with two hatchling beardies for me and I just fell in love, and they were the best present ever, they got me right back into reptiles.
Just give it ago, get another snake, but maybe get juvenile, or hatching. I think it helped that they were a lot smaller and I could watch them grow myself, it just increased my confidence with reptiles again.
Best of luck!