[Dailydrool] Elmo and his corneal ulcers

[Donna Lindy]

We're mostly lurking and emailing off list these days because
of several family issues - a wedding, an imminent move to a nursing
home and elderly hounds.  We've been rocking along okay but
now I need to get out the big guns for our sweet Elmo.  He has
had corneal ulcers in his left eye that have been slowly healing.
Yesterday I had high hopes that they were completely gone but
that is not the case.  While he just has a tiny sliver of the ulcers
left, he now has bubbles on his cornea.  If they burst, they
can form new ulcers.  These ulcers are very painful and have
compromised Elmo's sight.

Elmo's visits to the eye vet for these ulcers mean that
the ulcers get scraped (yes, his eye is numbed with drops) -
the scraping promotes healing of the ulcers but the next
couple of days are really painful.  It just breaks my heart
for him to go through this week after week, especially since
he's almost 13 and has so much arthritis and other issues.
He's such a good, sweet boy but his quality of life with these
ulcers is not that good.  One of the 3 eye drops he gets 3 x
a day is for pain but I can't see that it helps all that much,
at least not for a couple of days after the scraping.

We would so appreciate any drool that could be sent
our way for our smooshy old speed bump - he just
doesn't deserve to go through all of this.

Thanks,
Donna, drool fueler for Elmo, Pw Pauline, Gracie and
Pw Bosley