The eyeball chronicles-New with pics

The eyeball mission yesterday was fascinating. Off we went, with one blind horse, and one currently seeing out of both eyes but who knows if it will last horse.

I basically knew what would happen, but it was way cooler in person. We did Squeak first, since she cannot see a damn thing. First, we stained her eyes to ensure she had no ulcerations--that is the green goo in them in the photo. She was good. We tranqued her up good, then she got three local anasthesia shots around each eye to nerve her. When those kicked in, it was all hands on deck. BS was in charge of the twitch that we used just in case--you sure do not need any unnecessary movement with needles that close to the eyeball. I was in charge of holding the eyelid up as far as possible, while Adrianna the vet pulled the eyeball down with some tweezery looking things. When she got it down as far as she needed it to be, she injected with a 25 g needle a tiny bit of gentacin in the eyeball itself. The goal of this is to kill the lepto virus that is likely causing this stupid problem (she previously tested for 3 of 6 strains of lepto). Next, she injected a steroid under the eyelid. This will help bring down the swelling, which is what actually causes a lot of the damage.

The bad news on Squeak is that she already has formed a cataract on her left eye, so we probably are pretty screwed on that one. Since the right eye just had its first flareup, we have high hopes for getting the vision back in that one.

We should see some results in a few weeks. We still have to use the steroid ointment for a while, but when she starts seeing again, we can discontinue that. That will be a relief for all of us, although she is really good about tolerating it, we do not even have to halter her to do it (unlike rock, who fights it)

Rock's went equally well. We only did her left eye as there has not been any indication that there was a problem in the right eye yet. She did not even need the twitch to get hers done. She sure did get woozy though! She had a heck of a time staying on her feet

I only have a couple of photos that I have not downloaded as it was late when I got home. I had hoped to document it all, but the flash would have spooked them, and I had to help holding eyelids.

The coolest part was the wierd sound the eyeballs made when the needles went in. Sort of a squishy popping sound. Also, eyeballs are BIG--I was amazed at how big.

And when Squeak got some of her shots, she farted. Garbage in garbage out, I guess.