[Dailydrool] Daisy's glaucoma surgery

[Ann Hefner]

Daisy's glaucoma emerged in her one remaining eye.   We took her to Eye Care for Animals in Salt Lake City.  Xalatan alone would not keep the pressure down, so they added Timolol and Trusopt and referred us to their clinic in Albuquerque that has a doc that could do the procedure she needed to save her eyesight.  Dad slave took Daisy in this morning to Dr. Kennard at Eye Care for Animals in Albuquerque.  Dr. Kennard said her angles were so bad, she'd be blind in a month without the surgery, meds or no meds.  He is one of two docs in the country working on perfecting this procedure.

He first sent us to the clinic's website for "Helpful Links" to apply for Wells Fargo Health Care Advantage credit.  We were approved for roughly 3/4 of the bill at zero percent for 12 months.  So that helped a lot.

About 4:00 today we finally heard from the clinic that the surgery went well and she was doing fine.  Carl picked her up later in the afternoon.  Dr. Kennard made a video of the entire procedure.  I can't wait to see it.  He made Carl watch it while he was there.  Dad slave was afraid he was going to pass out.   They lasered her eye to unclog the drainage tubes, and put in a shunt for better drainage.  The laser fries the cornea so he then does cataract surgery.  Carl will bring her back tomorrow so the doc can see how things are doing; they will flush out the eye.  Daisy will be there for most of the day.  She will then go back again Friday, and if all is well Carl can bring her home.  We will then have follow up visits at the clinic in Salt Lake City which is half the distance.

This is supposed to save her eyesight.   We cannot let her shake, jump or do anything for about 3 weeks.  No going up and down the stairs.  She has to stay in a crate except when we walk her on a leash only.  The doc says as long as we are careful with her, the eye should heal fine.  He told a story of another dog.  He told the owner she had to keep the dog confined.  After seeing the dog on a follow up visit he said it looked like the eye had been run over by a truck.  He asked how she kept him confined and she said in her 5 acre back yard.

Anyway, that's all we know for now.  I'll post more on her progress.

Ann
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.dailydrool.org/pipermail/dailydrool-dailydrool.org/attachments/20091021/e5c9578b/attachment-0002.htm>