Gwydion was diagnosed with diabetes on September 23, 2002 (see the Diabetes links listed at right for great sources of info and support). A very common complication in dogs is vision loss leading to blindness. Gwydion was very lucky for 3 years, but our luck is coming to an end. I noticed in mid October (2005) that he was startling badly at anything passing near his face (he has never been one for a dramatic startle reflex). Then I started to see a new and odd looking "eyeshine" (with his blue eyes, it was always red and now it seemed slightly yellow). Gwydion is 10 years old. This blog was started to document the story of his vision loss, how he handles it, and what we do about it. (If you would like to read from the beginning, the first post is It’s Starting.)
Yellow
January 29th, 2006
Nothing dramatic has happened in the past few days, but I do have a new pic to show. His eye is definitely yellow now, and will hopefully be blue before too much longer!
We’ve noticed something a bit odd lately. I think it’s because he’s trying to adjust to his close vision being sharper in the left eye than the right. If I hold something in my fingertips, he bumps the base of my fingers with his nose when he tries to take it (about 3-4 inches off). I’m not sure why he’s only starting to do it now (perhaps because the eye was so problematic before?), but I’m sure he will figure it out.
Gwydion’s eyes are quite red this week. I’m going to mention it to the vet during our Tuesday appointment.
His blood sugar is still giving me grief. He’s getting much more insulin than he has before, and we still are having trouble getting it down and keeping it down. I’m beginning to suspect something else might be bothering him (we are still having intermittent toxic gas episodes, I’ve really got to get some acidophilus and see if that helps). Diabetics are very prone to UTIs, especially when their BGs are high (the sugar in the urine provides a great meal for “bad” bacteria). I’m not seeing anything that points directly at that, but if I don’t see some improvement, I might have to take him in the see our regular vet too.
He seems very thin to me as well, but I’m not sure if he has actually lost weight or not. Maybe I’ll drag him into the vet to use their scale, just to see what it says.
“No Fly” Zone is Back!
January 26th, 2006Gwydion chased an airplane tonight! Just need snow, and all will be back to normal <G>
No pic tonight, sorry. Just don’t quite have the energy, but I should be able to do it tomorrow.
Gwydion had an upset tummy this evening. I think it was probably just something not agreeing with him, but I’m not sure what that might have been. I’ll have to keep an eye on him.
His blood glucose is doing better. Still a bit more erratic than “normal” (not that his normal was anything predictable), but better than it was the past couple of weeks.
Things are going well! I’m so pleased :-)
Better Today
January 25th, 2006Boy! Something yesterday made Gwydion’s tummy most unhappy! We spent the night trying to sleep through nearly toxic gas levels. Yowza!
On a good note, I was right, and a good night’s sleep helped. Gwydion felt much better this morning, and his eye looks better too. It’s not quite as light as it was before the vet visit yesterday, but almost. I’m going to wait till tomorrow for another pic though.
And on an even better note, I feel like “my dog” is back. Getting rid of the cone has made a difference for all of us, and he’s is obviously happier without it. He’s been playing with toys a bit, and almost looked like he wanted to “bounce” at Gwen today (he doesn’t play much with her any more since she can’t/won’t figure out how to play without body slamming). Even though he never completely lost his vision, he can see much better now (he thought he saw a squirrel, but pulled up short when he realized it was only a pigeon). He seems more himself than he has in the past month or so, and I’m very glad to see it.
Hopefully the good progress will continue and his right eye will be blue (and working properly) before too much longer.
Two Week Check-Up
January 24th, 2006Kinda good news/bad news day again.
He really is doing OK, just not as quickly as we’d all like. His left eye (blue with lens implant) is doing fine. Pressure is still a bit low, but seems to be healing (and working) just fine. We got rid of the cone!!!!!!!!!
Right eye (was brown, no implant) is where we are still having some issues. Color-wise it is looking pretty good. It always looks best first thing in the morning, and today I would have described it as “yellow.” However, when the vet looked at it, there was still a blood clot inside that was preventing normal dilation and contraction. So he decided to give him something else, that he had mentioned last week and I was hoping he wouldn’t have to have. Since a lot of people are as squeamish as I am, I am posting it in white. If you want to know what he did, highlight the following blank space. If not, just skip it :-)
Gwydion had to have a shot in his eye
The trouble was that they needed to knock him out briefly to do this (also to remove the stitches from the corner of his eye – those grossed me out too, so I don’t think I mentioned them earlier either). Once again, Gwydion was “special” and took longer than normal to recover, even though he got a reversal for the anesthetic. He came back a bit dazed and wobbly, and slept the whole car ride home (I actually pulled into a parking lot to go back and check on him, he’s never that quiet in the car).
He’s such a good boy though. Every time he “goes with” someone, he always stops and looks back at me. I always say “It’s OK, you can go” (and usually wave my hands as if brushing him away) and then he trots off with them just fine.
He seemed OK (still sleepy, but OK) when we got home, so Mark and I decided to go ahead and see the movie that we’d talked about before I left. We were gone for a few hours. Gwydion seems to feel OK, but I’m a bit concerned about his right eye. It doesn’t seem to be hurting him, but he’s got it about half closed, and the third eyelid is more visible than usual. It’s brown again too, but I’m guessing that’s because of the clot breaking up. I debated about calling the vet, but I really don’t think he’s in pain, so I think I’m going to just keep an eye on him, and maybe call the vet in the morning if things aren’t improved.
The drops didn’t change, so that’s good. Our next appointment is one week from today, but at 9am. Ugh. Nothing later was available. I’m debating about calling to see if there is a later time this Friday (it would be a better day anyway, since we won’t have so many car issues). We’d be earlier than a week, but I think I’d rather do that than get up at 6am (ugh) next week.
A Squirrel, a Green Eye and a Lower Number
January 22nd, 2006Hooray! Gwydion chased a squirrel out of the yard today!!!! I’m so ridiculously overexcited about that <G>
On another “good news” front, his eye is definitely green now instead of brown. I’m so happy about that too! I afraid he would need this other icky shot if it wasn’t looking better, and it’s such a relief that it’s finally clearing so quickly on its own.
And to top the day off right, we finally got a really good BG number tonight! Hip-hip-hooray!!!! The trick now will be to figure out how to keep it low, but it’s a step in the right direction :-)