How the Hell Did I End Up Here?

I almost did a Five Favourite Friday Findings post, I even found this adorable Peter Pan Collar nails tutorial that I wanted to include, but then I decided I need to write about my week and what’s I’m currently doing now.

This week has been one of those "How the Hell Did I End Up Here?" sort of weeks.  Do you have ever those? A week where you can’t even believe where you ended up in a such a sort period of time? Last Friday I was sitting at my desk looking forward to spending the weekend with Arthur and Dan with my life as normal as it's ever been.  Now I'm sitting here, anxiously awaiting a phone call from Ophthalmologist to let me know that Arthur has made it through his keratotomy (surgery). 

Last Friday morning I noticed that Arthur’s left eye was slightly red, not something that’s out of the ordinary if he’s overly sleepy but I always make a mental note to monitor it to make sure that it clears up.  Not so much the case as when I got home from work Friday night, it was extremely red.  I called the vet immediately and brought him in the next day.  There they stained his eye to check for scratches (corneal ulcers) and made sure nothing was trapped under his third eyelid.   Nothing.  They gave me some anti-inflammatory drops and chocked it up to allergies.  We already had a vet appointment for Monday and they planned on re-checking his eye then.  His eye didn’t improve so when we got to the vets Monday they re-stained and found two tiny corneal ulcers.  We were given an eye drop solution to help him heal and were instructed to keep his e-collar on him 24/7 (an e-collar is one of those satellite dish looking plastic neck dealies).

We followed the instructions and when Arthur went to the vet’s on Wednesday for a follow-up his corneal ulcer had some how gotten so big that a simple eye drop solution would not heal it.  We were told that we needed to bring him to an eye specialist.

So Thursday morning Dan and I drove Arthur up to the clinic to have the ophthalmologist take a look at it.  He completely shocked me when he informed me that it was an extremely bad corneal abrasion that would require surgery to correct.  I say shocked because I honestly have no idea what caused the ulcer in the first place and how it got so out of control in such a sort period of time.  This morning we brought him back to the vet for a grid keratotomy.  Which, from what I understand, involves peeling back the affected Corneal epithelium (top layer covering the cornea, in Arthur’s case it involved the whole cornea) and by using a laser, make tiny grooves so that new healthy cells have something to adhere to.  They will pull his third eyelid over his eye as a “living band-aid” and then stitch the eye shut.  His eye will be stitched shut for four weeks and he will have to wear the e-collar 24/7 for 6 to 8 weeks.  Not very fun for my poor little 9 month old puppy.

Pre-surgery Arthur

I’m a little worried because brachycephalic breeds (pushed in face animals) do not do well with anaesthetics.  But I’m sure he’ll do just fine.  

Good Luck Art-man!

 Alex & Arthur when he comes home from eyeball surgery