11.21.2010

Elizabeth Taylor eye


We had a rough weekend last weekend. We had nothing planned and were looking forward to having a relaxing weekend at home. All he** decided to break loose instead. In order to understand the story, we must start at the beginning. We adopted Booyah almost four years ago (it will be four years at the end of this week). He is a very sweet boy. He waited and waited at the kennel to find a home because he is a big (83lb) black male with one eye that has a genetic defect. It is blue in color, has a protrusion at its center and a bit sunken in. He also has no sight in this eye. If you look closely you can see the difference in his right eye from a "normal" greyhound eye. None of that mattered to us, we just wanted a good second addition to help Miss Queen with her separation anxiety. He is the perfect fit and cured Maggie's anxiety. All has been well with this eye and his general health for the past almost four years. That is until last Wednesday. Wednesday evening I noticed his eye was a bit red and he was squinting a bit. This has happened before when he has poked himself in the eye when walking by a tree branch. I did not think much of it and decided to check him in the morning and go from there. Thursday morning, the redness had decreased some, there was no drainage, swelling or edema and his natural blue color was present. I thought it must be getting better and opted not to take him to the vet. Things ended up taking a turn for the worse on Friday evening. His eye had changed in color to purple, was swollen and bulging. (this pic below was taken today) We went to see my primary vet early Saturday morning, who diagnosed him with having a Descemetocele, which is a formation of an ulcer that then ruptures. As you can imagine, that would be quite painful. They informed me that he will likely need surgery to either repair the eye (cut the nerve endings to the eye) or remove the eye. I was given a referral to see a specialist.

I should note here that because of this whole incident, Booyah nor will any of my other fur kids, will be returning to this vet for any further care. And here is the reason. Booyah has been seen by this vet practice for four years. The vet he normally sees was off last Saturday, so he saw the other vet. In the four years he has been seen, no one noted that there was a birth defect in this eye and what it looked like. The vet who saw him Saturday also informed me that when they saw him the Saturday prior for a regular 6 month check up and vaccine update they noted at that time that he had an ulcer in his eye. However, no one bothered to inform me of this. They had also noted back in 2009 that he had corneal scarring and an unknown mass/deformity. On 3 separate visits some issue with his eye was noted in his chart but was not discussed with me. As you can imagine, I was quite perturbed and the Vet and her staff received quite the mouthful of ugliness from me.

I am very proactive and heavily involved in the care of our fur kids and I always ask when they are seen if there are any concerns with their health. In the interest of seeking a second opinion, because I no longer trusted anything this vet had to say, I drove Booyah to an emergency vet for their opinion. The vet who saw him concluded the same diagnosis and also referred me to a specialist. Before going to the emergency vet, I did contact two specialist's office, but unfortunately none of the Ophthalmologists in the Richmond nor the Northern Virginia were on call that weekend. As a side note, if you live in the state of Virginia and your fur kid has a true eye emergency, good luck on the weekends. You may end up at Virginia Tech or NC State to receive care.

The ER vet gave us pain meds and eye drops to get us through the weekend and told us to call if the eye worsened. She also informed us that we could go to VT or NC state if he needed emergent surgery.

The whole weekend I was anxious and worried sick about Booyah. We saw the specialist on Monday. After looking at Booyah for just a few seconds and hearing his history, the vet informed me that this was not a Descemetocele. I was quite relived.

Now, it should be noted that I am not bashing the other two vets for a wrong diagnosis, as they are not eye specialists and I don't expect they would be able to properly diagnosis this issue. However, my primary vet office not letting me know about scarring, unknown mass and an ulcer in the eye is ridiculous and I am still outraged over that situation.

The good news is that Booyah is going to be okay and surgery is not needed, at least not yet. It may be needed in the future if we cannot medically manage his pain. Booyah's correct diagnosis is a Congential anomaly/blind; Corneal staphloma; Hyphema suspect retina detachment. So what does all that mean? According to the eye specialist it means this:
"Booyah's right eye has a birth defect and the bulge in the cornea is a weak area but it is not unstable. The hemorrhage inside the eye is likely due to a detachment of the retina. I suspect he had a blunt trauma to the eye and that caused the hemorrhage and sensitivity. If the eye remains painful, removal of the eye may be recommended."

Booyah is on pain meds, anti-inflammatorys and eye drops. His has remained his loving, sweet self and his tail has never stopped wagging through this whole ordeal. He is no longer squinting, so I think there has been an improvement. Only time will tell if surgery will be necessary. We follow up with the specialist on December 1st and will go from there. But for the meantime and the future, we are ans will remain in love with our big, beautiful, black boy even with his Elizabeth Taylor eye.

11.06.2010

Just Cuz

A couple of weeks ago, the girls and I played fetch in the yard with their new cuz toy. This is Maggie's absolute, bar none, favorite toy. It makes an obnoxiously loud squeak, so it remains an outside toy. The boys don't care much for a game of fetch, but the girls love it. They love the competition and play very well together. Maggie is like a "big sister" to Pippi and plays that role very well. :) The girls do everything together and are quite lost when they are apart even though they have the company of the boys. Mitch always walks the boys when we travel and I always walk the girls. It bodes true at home also. The boys are usually always with Mitch whether he is downstairs or upstairs and the girls are with me. Maybe it should not be this way, but it is. Now, that is not to say that Mitch does not spend any time with the girls or loves them any less or that I do not spend any time with the boys or love them any less. It just seems that they have picked "their people". =)

Anywho...here are some pics of our time playing fetch in the backyard.

Pippi is ready to catch the cuz toy.


Maggie watches as Pippi makes her catch.
Then it is Maggie's turn to catch.
The girls both look on for the flying cuz.


Pippi makes her move while Maggie waits.Maggie's technique pays off.
Next throw, Maggie loses site of cuz.

Once she spots it, she makes a 180 degree turn.
Pippi has her eyes on the next throw.

She makes a dive for it and ends up looking like a Kangaroo. I wonder if her tail was balancing her. ;-)This catch sends her flying around the yard. Her victory lap, I guess.The girls had a blast! I am so glad two have to hounds who love to play fetch. We have such a good time watching them. That is about all that we have been up to for the month of October as far as doggie activities are concerned. We have been busy with human activities, which I may post about later. =)