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.
The bricks, decking, beams, tasting bar etc. all came from older buildings in Virginia, in other states and from other countries. The building itself is beautiful, but to get a full appreciation for how it was designed and built the tour is a must. NKC winery is the largest winery in Virginia. It is situated on 5,000 acres of land. After the owner purchased the land, he made a deal with folks in the community who hunted on the land. They still do hunt on the property (not close to the winery) and for that priviledge in return they come out each year with their families and help harvest the crops. All of their grapes are hand picked! After seeing the process that it takes to make just one barrel of wine, y0u get a true appreciation for their work and the wine. We were so amazed by the process we stood in awe in the wine makers room on the catwalk as they explained the process in great detail. 
