First and foremost, Max is doing well. (The above picture is from his neutering last year.)
OK, the back story. We woke up on Sunday morning, Max's left eye was closed and goopy. We cleaned the goop away, and noticed that his eye appeared cloudy, like a cataract patient. I called the emergency vet in Frederick, MD, then drove him down there around 7:30. They did a pressure test on his eye and it was very high. They also notice the lens looked like it was tilted. They sent us to the emergency vet in Gaithersburg, MD, right on the outskirts of Washington, DC. I was not happy about driving down there, but it was a lot closer than I thought, Max slept the whole way, and at least I didn't have to fight rush hour traffic.
This was an advanced care facility with a lot of specialists. Their Opthamologist wasn't in that day (of course), but they did some tests and started him on some pressure reducing meds. They told me he had an anterior luxating lens. I'm very eye squeemish, so I won't go into details. They kept him and I headed home, exhausted and hungry. I got home about 12:30.
They did the surgery to remove the lens on Monday night, it went well and as expected. He's also developed corneal ulcers, one on each eye, which are painful and complicate the situation. They don't know why these developed. The good news is that they reduced the pressure in time and reduced the damage to the eye, so he has sight in that eye. The bad news was the price tag, which was almost high enough that we wouldn't have been able to do it. Almost.
They sent us home with 7 eye drops, 2 pills and one goop that you squirt in his mouth. He hates the drops, so we also hate the drops.
He has two elizabethian collars on. He is getting drops 3x/day, he has a good appetite, and although he's not too interested in drinking anything we are getting him to drink some occasionally. He slept downstairs by himself last night, cones in place, and did ok.
I'm at work today, I'm going to go check on him at lunch. I feel like I should check in to a hospital or something, I'm so stressed about all this. I was home with him yesterday and although he slept almost all day I was just so stressed I couldn't eat anything. I am trying to eat a bagel and have some coffee this morning, but I've already got a tension headache. I keep telling myself I can only do what I can do: give him his meds, talk to him, love him up, let him out. The rest is up to...him? Fate?
4 comments:
That was really an OMG!!! I'm glad that Max is home and doing well right now.
I can totally understand how stressed you are. You are right Jody: you can only do what you can do: give him his meds, talk to him, love him up, let him out, give him lots of hugs and kisses. So, try to eat something and sleep a little. Just think, who's going to take care of Max if you get too sick?
I had an OMG experience with June about 8 months ago, during Christmas/New Year time. Let's just say it involved her and rat poison. She is all ok now, took about month for her blood to get back to normal level. I still cry when I think about that time.
God, that must have been scary. When I got to the vet in Gaithersburg, a family was bringing in their two labs who had *chewed off* the cap to a Prestone antifreeze container. They were really upset (understandably) and they didn't know if they had actuall ingested any or not.
Max is doing well, eating well, and still is drinking water sporadically. Matt has better luck geting him to drink. He's still sleeping a LOT. The vet isn't too concerned about that, and when I talked to her last night she said everything sounds really good. We have our follow-up on Monday afternoon.
Thanks for checking in!! Dog owners unite!!
You are welcome. I'm sure you are like me, I have no human kids, just 2 dogs and they are my kids.
It was my fault with June. I had forgotten about the rat poison we put in the garage(the side where the dogs don't normally go to)almost 1 year ago. I went in to get something really quick and they followed me. It only took me less than 1 minute in there and when I came out June was licking her mouse like she just finish eating something and I saw little green droppings and I knew. I took her to the vet right away. She was given vitamin K shots almost every other day. My poor baby was having her blood drawn and getting shots every other day. And then I had to give her 2 shots myself on Chrsitmas time because they were closed and the vet said I had to do it. Needless to say, my entire Christmas bonus check went to the vet bills. But I will take no money over losing my baby.
Good luck on Monday at the vet.
You write very well.
Post a Comment