Gwydion’s Eyes

Well, I’m depressed today, and I may as well just get the bad news out of the way first so we can go on to better stuff.

The retina is detaching in Gwydion’s right eye, which means he will go completely blind in that eye.

The visit started out looking hopeful. The atropine was doing whatever it was supposed to, and the right pupil was looking better. His left eye is “beautiful.” When the eye pressures were checked, the left is still low, but the right is even lower. So the vet decided to do an ultrasound, and you could see the detachment starting in the eye.

There is a place in Chicago that might be able to stop it, but it would be very expensive (about twice what the cataract surgery cost), and we’d have to do it “soon.” I just can’t justify trying it. If there was a guarantee, maybe. But without, it’s a lot more stress on both of us, he’d have to be under anesthesia again <shudder>, it’s a long drive, and heck, it’s an awful lot of money. If it was both eyes I might be tempted, but since his other eye is fine, we’re going to have to pass, sadly.

So, my immediate reaction to all this was “too much medical detail.” I’m very bad with that, and while I haven’t ever actually fainted, I’ve been told I look like I’m about to. I ended up sitting on the floor against the wall with my head back for several minutes, and then I was able to get his next appointment made (1 month) and go out to the car. I lay down in the back seat for quite a while, till I was sure I was feeling well enough to drive home.

Now that I’m “recovered,” I’m trying to figure out the best way to cope. I think he’ll be fine in the house, we’ll just have to be careful of things “sticking out” at doggy level. Outside will probably be a different story, since there are lots of potential dangers out there that I really can’t get rid of. I have a couple pairs of Doggles, and I think he’s just going to have to start wearing them any time he is off-lead. He doesn’t like them much (he keeps trying to rub them off), but I’m going to see if I can adjust them to fit better so he will accept them. He’s just going to have to learn to deal with them I guess. I don’t know if his eye will look obviously “blind” or not (I hope not). Once he gets used to the Doggles, I’ll have to get a picture (he looks like a bike rider wearing them, they’re pretty cute!)

The outward appearance of his eye hasn’t changed much (still rather yellow). He is just getting the pred drops now, but dropped down to 3 times a day instead of 4.

Another positive note is that his tummy seems to be all better. No more toxic gas episodes, and we had a nice normal poop last night (only a dog person would understand how great that is <G>).

I think I’ll go eat some more chocolate and ice-cream.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 4:11 pm and is filed under diagnosis, post-surgery, treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.