Yesterday, when I returned home from work, Lucy's left eye had turned white and hazy. Today, I took her to the eye doctor. He said she had scratched it, gotten it infected and an ulcer had formed. Her steroid drops had aggravated the infection, too. She is on a new regimen to fight the infection. Dr Blair said this is a serious problem. It is weird how quickly this trouble set in. Just look at her shopping cart pictures from two days ago-things then were great. The complications regarding her eye surgery have been difficult. Today was a real downer. I'm sorry that I have so many posts regarding eyeball problems. Truth is, before we even started all of this, I hated eyeballs. I am squeamish regarding eyes and especially eye trauma. I don't like putting drops in any eyes. But I do it for my puppy. I love her. I have fought so hard to make her well. I want us to cross the finish line on all of this, give everyone involved a high five, and to just forget about eyeballs for a while. I wonder if Dr Blair, gets tired of eyeballs, too?
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The vet gave Lucy Clomicalm, which takes a few weeks to properly work. To bridge the gap until then, she is also taking Alprazolam (Xanax) as a secondary anti-anxiety medication. Here is a picture from the vet, and some pictures of our CVS trip for her medication. Hit the play button, in the corner of the picture to start the slideshow. Polly, the CVS lady was very nice. She gave us a dog biscuit, in addition to her pills. Everyone at the Vet's office said that Molly was Lucy's therapy dog. She definitely is that! We are taking Lucy back to the vet next week for blood work. We are going to double check that her thyroid medication is properly prescribed. If she is suffering from hyperthyroidism, that could cause her recent onset high anxiety. I've noticed that Lucy has been acting differently. She seems like she has not been feeling well. I took her back to the eye doctor, and she has elevated pressure in one eye. She's back on meds for eyeball pressure. The red haze in her eyes is just a normal reaction to the incisions, which was good news. But she is back to weekly visits to the eye doctor to monitor her pressure. Also, she has developed a bad case of night separation anxiety. She has always resisted going to bed, as she does not sleep in our room with us. But her fear of going to bed seems to grow with time, instead of diminishing. Research on this issue has proven unhelpful. We may need to add some anxiety meds, but I'd like to finish some of her eye related prescriptions, first. We try not to react to her crying and digging at night, but we need to get some sleep. To keep dust down, I don't want to have my pets sleep in my bedroom. I've tried letting her go free range for a few nights. I thought that if she saw that we were fine, and her bed was in the laundry room, along with Molly, eventually she would settle down on her bed. But she wandered all night. And being up all night resulted in accidents in the house. Except for our free range experiment, we stick to a predictable routine in the evenings; we try to not coddle her when she is upset, we are good pack leaders, but she is really anxious and is disrupting everyone's sleep. I hate seeing her like this. I wish she could speak, so we could talk out what is upsetting her.
The procedure was successful. Lucy was terribly groggy when I picked her up from her surgery. She was still sedated in the car. Once I set her down on the grass, it was a different story. Lucy is scheduled to have her cataract surgery on the 18th of August. I was hoping to learn more about the state of her retinas today, but her retina check will be directly before surgery. If they are detached or not in good shape, surgery will be cancelled. This vet reported that less than 5% of dogs have complications. The complications range from needing eye drops forever for irritation, to blindness. For the dogs who don't have complications, there is a 98% success rate for an increase in vision.
If her surgery is successful she will return home the same day, seeing better. In case you are considering this, too, for your pet, the cost of the retina check will be $500. The surgery, including meds will be $2,500. The blood work revealed that they both should stay on thyroid meds. Molly's numbers have improved more than Lucy's, and Lucy's dosage should increase. Their liver and kidney function is fine. No more anemia, too.
Just to be thorough, I elected to have xrays of Lucy's legs. Turns out that her gimpy gait was from being bow legged in the back. Her hips and knees are great, but she has arthritis in her front shoulders. We are going to try some glucosamine. Thankfully both girls are great at taking pills. There are no barriers for Lucy's cataract surgery so the next vet visit will be to the eye vet. We live about six miles from the animal eye doctor, which is convenient. Lucy needs some sort of retina test as the first step toward seeing. Molly and Lucy will be getting their blood work rechecked. We are hoping their anemia is gone and was due to their original flea infestation. We hope to get them off Thyroxine medication and that all of their organs will be fully functioning. Lucy has a wobbly walk, and we will see if that is just from old age, or if it may be from some other ailment which might pose a barrier to her eye surgery. Her back end has an unusual gait. I don't want to pose expensive testing for her walk, since eye surgery will be costly, but I wish I knew why her stride is a bit twisted.
Biscuit was digging at the irritated spots on her skin and whimpering. I couldn't decide if she was whimpering from scratchy skin or if she was missing her foster Mama. Just to be safe, we went to the Vet for our first visit. Both pups are now on a steroid and fish oil to sooth their coats. I personally feel that fish oil=snake oil, but I didn't feel like debating its medical benefits with our Vet. As per my ongoing vet visit policy, "life is full of ups and downs". Their medical exam was definitely a low. It included an unwelcome gland cleaning. So we followed it with a high point. We split a McDonald's chicken nugget 4 pack. |
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