Tag: dog eye surgery

Riley’s Ophthalmology Re-Check

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia43 Comments

We are joining Brian’s Thankful Thursday blog hop with a special thanks today!

Hi friends. I went back to see the special dogtor today. Everyone there is so nice. They even understand that I’m not mean, I just get scared. They’re always nice to me, and even told Mom Amy that I’m really a sweet boy. *wag*

Before all that, though, I reclaimed Reindeer from Xena. Me and Reindeer, we’re tight, ya’ know? We hang together and I take him running through the house with me, and we nap together. He’s my bud.

Back to my eye dogtor appointment. My sight has been saved! It’s only slightly “diminished,” but I can still see out of it and it’s pretty much back to normal except for how it looks. This picture is shortly before my eye surgery.

It hurt so much I kept my eyes closed most of the time.

This picture is after my exam today. See how wide open my eyes are!

I know it still looks weird, but it doesn’t hurt. The dogtor, henceforth called the “Good Dogtor,” said it should eventually turn more white, but it won’t ever look like before the first dogtor, henceforth called the “Bad Dogtor,” messed it up. It looks like this because of the “procedure” the Good Dogtor did to save it. The veterinary ophthamologist (Good Dogtor) removed some of my inner eyelid and sewed it with the tiniest of stitches over the large and deep ulcer eating away at my right eye. If you didn’t get a chance to read about that, you can hop here to find out more.

Anyhoo, I was a real, real good boy today at the Good Dogtor’s office. He even said I was like a different dog today, which told him how much pain I was in the first couple of times he saw me. I go back in six months for a check-up on my eye, but that’s a long time from now, so I’m not worried about it.

We are all HUGELY thankful for my eye being better.

Your friend, Riley

Happy Tuesday Riley Update

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia35 Comments

Many thanks to Comedy Plus for hosting Happy Tuesday.

Riley had his one week recheck after his eye surgery. Lucy explained the best she could about how the veterinary ophthamologist removed some of his inner eyelid and sewed it with the tiniest of stitches over the large and deep ulcer eating away at his right eye. We’ve noticed over the past week that the yellow puss has all but disappeared and he has been keeping his eye open more, which means that the new antibiotics are also working, and it isn’t hurting much.

First the really gross picture, so you may want to just jump over this one if you are squeamish.

Riley’s right eye is all red – even the colored part – because of the overlay of the thin film of blood vessel-filled sheath that is sewn onto it. The job of this sheath is two-fold: 1. protect the eye, and 2. carry the healing medicine via blood to the eye.

We can also tell he is feeling better because he has started to play again. He is interested in his reindeer stuffie again, as well as the chew bones laying around the house.

We had to laugh at him standing up with a bone perched on the end of his cone, much like this picture of him laying down with the same thing going on. No one’s getting that bone from him without getting caught in his big cone. He has actually caught Lucy in it this past week and backed her through the kitchen. Yes, our boy is feeling better.

The specialist said his cone can come off in two weeks and his re-check is in three weeks. I feel like I can breathe again. Thank you all for your kind words and prayers and concern. It has meant so much.

Amy, aka The Mom

Update on Riley’s Eyes

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia36 Comments

After Mom Amy and Dad Jeff got back with wherever they took the girls all morning, Mom Amy loaded me up in the back seat of the car and off we went. I knew this could mean only one thing — another vet visit. My eyes hurt, and they seem to be getting worse instead of better. I’ve also had to wear this gawd awful collar of shame 24/7. It catches on everything as I walk by, and I yank it to get loose, dumping stuff on the floor. Not my fault! This is me in the cone just before I went into the new vet’s office.

My right eye really hurt and I kept it closed most of the time. Don’t mean to stick my tongue out atcha. I pant when I’m nervous.

After a little while in the opthomologist’s office, he left and came back in with Mom Amy. She had been waiting in the car like she was supposed to. Hmm, I thought. This can’t be good. It’s really not my fault I didn’t want him to touch my face or put a muzzle on me! He might try to steal my eyeball! I have big teeth and they look scary. Guess that’s why he went to get Mom Amy so she could “get bit” instead of him. Shhh, don’t tell her I would never bite her.

In the end, it took all three of them to get the muzzle on me and I still went crazy when the dogtor tried to put drops in my eyes. He did get some in, and real soon-like, the pain went away! Maybe this guy is OK.

Then he looked at my eyes in the dark with a special instrument, removed a suture, picked something else off my eyelid and even put a contact lense in my one eye. He said there was hair rubbing on it, and the lense would protect it until the swelling went down and he could see if that was the reason that hair could rub on it. After Mom Amy gave his minyan all her money and some plastic card, too, we went home with a sackful of pills and some new salve. I’ve got pills for pain, pills for anxiety, pills for infection, and others that I don’t even know what they do. I have a feeling I’m not going to be “uncomfortable” any more.

I’m back in the car ready to go home. Can you tell my eye already looks some better? (I’m told this is positive thinking.) I go back next week, next Wednesday. The people at the dogtor’s office said to be sure I get the strong anti-anxiety pills 1 1/2 hours before I come! Aren’t they nice?

Love and tail wags, Riley

Riley’s Surgeries

Published on by Xena, Lucy and Chia45 Comments

This is Riley. I don’t remember if I told you I’ve had ear problems for at least a couple of years. Sometimes, when you get to be almost 11, you don’t remember everything, you know? But I do know that my ears keep getting infected, and they have been miserable, and it’s been miserable having them cleaned out and then having the vet mess with them when they get too bad.

I really hate going to the vet. It scares me a lot, and it hurts to have them do anything to my ears and shots hurt, too. I freak out when they try to cut my nails, too. The entire lot of them aren’t strong enough to hold me still to steal my nails!

At the beginning of last month the vet suggested that it was time to “scope” my ears so he could see just what was going on. So early one morning, well before my wake up time, Mom Amy convinced me to get in the back seat of the car and we started down the road. I just knew she couldn’t be taking me anywhere good at that time of day, and I shook and cried and panted the whole 40 minute drive there. Oh, and it gets worse! They gassed me!! I fought like the devil, but in the end, I got really tired and fell asleep.

Miss Amy picked me up and I cried a lot that night but felt really good the next day. My ear didn’t hurt! The dogtor sent away what he cut out of my ear to get a histology report on what it is. Turns out it was a tumor, but the kind that is not something called malignant. Everyone seemed very happy about that. That’s not all they found while they were poking around inside my ear. They discovered that my eardrum has a hole in it! So I got more drops to put in just my left ear. It’s not so bad now that my ear isn’t hurting anymore.

Last week Mom Amy told my Andrew that she thought I had an eye infection. She saw yellowish puss around one of my eyes. Andrew said my eye was alright, and when she looked again it did look ok. Then, this past Wednesday night, I started licking my leg and using it to wipe my right eye. Over and over and over. Miss Amy got down on the floor with me to “see what was going on” and she found a little round lump on the inside of my upper eyelid. She said it looked like a swollen seed tick, but didn’t think it was. My eye was all red and I couldn’t stop blinking. Every time I blinked that dang thing rubbed against my eye. Well, you can guess what happened Thursday morning. I shook and panted the whole way there again. The dogtor said I needed to have it removed, and that I also had something smaller on the area around my left eye. I had to go back on Friday morning and breathe in that awful gas again.

I’m home now from having surgery on both my eyelids.

I mostly can’t keep my right eye open. They both turned out to be styes. The dogtor cauterized the one on my right eyelid. The other one was blocking my tear duct, and I would have lost that eye if it hadn’t been detected and removed. I wonder if that’s what private eyes do, detect eye styes. Oh wait, that’s a detective I was thinking about, not a detector. I’m getting pretty sleepy and not thinking too clearly.

My right eye is bothering me a lot. Since I ended up with this big ol’ collar around my neck, preventing me from rubbing it with my paw, I’ve been trying to rub my eye on other things, like the floor and Lucy’s behind. But she keeps whacking me with her tail. Anyhow, because of that, Miss Amy gave me a big dose of Xena’s sea beady oil. I’m starting to not care about my eye anymore. I’m getting pretty slee..zzzzzzz.