Selfie Sunday could almost be totally re-named to BT Sunday… but it’s time for another BT update.  I was hoping to have really good news regarding her eye, but I really don’t.  It started going downhill Friday afternoon.  Tim took her to the vet Saturday morning, and we’ve scheduled a removal this coming Tuesday.

I’ve kept pictures out of these posts for various reasons, but I know there are several people who may be reading this that are curious about the injury or in the animal healthcare field somehow… so I’ll link to them.  I’ll warn you – if you’re squeamish about eyes or weird injuries don’t click.  You’ve been warned 🙂

When she first came home from the emergency vet on Thursday, Jan 23rd the eye looked like this and it was unclear whether the muscles that hold in the eye were damaged. Twenty four hours later we had drastic improvement and by a few days it was still not normal looking but officially on the road to recovery (see here).

By the middle of last week, the eye placement looked so good and the swelling was pretty much gone. We were just waiting for the redness to go away, but thought we were in the clear.

Then Friday morning Tim noticed the eye was creating a lot of tears/goop. By Friday afternoon that goop was yellow and it was pretty clear there was additional infection going on, so we made a vet appointment. This is what the eye looked like Friday afternoon.

At the vet the next day, we were told that the problem is the scratch on her cornea healing. See, BT has always had a “bum eye” with a lot of scar tissue on her left eye. This is from some untreated puncture wound that happened before we adopted her. Since there was so much scar tissue on the eye already, when the eye tried to make new scar tissue the blood vessels couldn’t properly get there to heal it. This resorted in the eye continually trying to make layers of scar tissue on top of each other, which left pockets available to collect dirt and germs that lead to easy infection.

The only way to fix this would be to do surgery that essentially cut a grid on her eye, sewed the 3rd eyelid shut, wait a week and see how well it did or didn’t heal. Or removal. Since the multiple surgeries to fix the eye would essentially be for cosmetic purposes only… we obviously went for removal.

I’m a little sad, but it’s the best decision for my dog. Eliot is behaving much better, but I’ve pretty much had to detach myself from how the injury happened. I’m thinking more along the lines of “my dog’s eye is injured and I need to fix it” instead of “Eliot bit BT’s eye and now it’s getting removed.” It is what it is.

Next week I’ll have a much happier update for you on this subject, because by then she will be our beloved cyclops dog and I’ll get to share the super cool computer project Tim has been developing to help her.

You may also like:

Selfie Sunday – BT Update Selfie Sunday – Working Through It Selfie Sunday – Pascale the Puppy Update Selfie Sunday – The Kindness of Strangers Selfie Sunday – Case of the Mehs