Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Scare

Our dog Jordan gave us a bit of a scare.

On Sun we noticed that her right eye seemed to be rolled up in her head. We could only see 1/2 of the colored area and a lot of white area below it. The other eye seemed normal.

My 1st thought was that her retina may have become detached. Dogs that shake their heads a lot can literally shake their retina loose. Our friends Kerry & Hugh's dog Chopper had to have emergency eye surgery to reattach his retina last year. Not only was it highly inconvenient for them to have to take off work and drive Chopper from VA to Chicago for the operation, it was extremely expensive. I knew retina issues have a definite 'shelf life'. You can't just put them off a little while like other surgeries.

Normally I'm the type of person who will 'give it a few days' to see if symptoms go away on their own. But because we thought there might be a problem with her retina, we felt time was of the essence, so we made the decision to call the vet 1st thing Mon morning.

Fortunately, Jordan's eye seemed better (less rolled up in her head) than the day before, but not back to normal yet. Although her eye appeared to be fixing itself, we took her to the vet anyway, just to be on the safe side.

Happily the vet's examination determined she did not have a detached retina or glaucoma or a scratched lens. The vet wasn't absolutely positive, but believed the eye got irritated by something, although there was no discharge or excess tearing. The vet also offered the possible explanation of an irritated nerve in her face that could also cause the eye to roll back.

We were given a small bottle of eye drops and instructions to give Jordan 1 drop 3 times a day. The vet felt confident it would soothe the irritation. Already her eye seems to be closer to normal than yesterday, so we're relieved.

The great thing is that there is no eye discharge, no excessive tearing, and she's not rubbing her eye area with her paw at all. In fact, she doesn't appear to have any idea there is/was a problem, which is the best!

Crush du Jour: Lior Ashkenazi

7 comments:

A Lewis said...

That doesn't sound good at all...it would scare me too. a lot. Give the pooch a hug, would you please?

Anonymous said...

Probably what the vet said, a nerve issue causing a muscle in the eye to spasm.

Even we humans get stuff like that. I remember the bout of Bell's Palsy I had. The entire left half of my face went numb.

Last time I saw my doctor he had me blow up my cheeks and he noticed a slight paralysis in one of the muscle groups. I explained the Bells Palsy thing and he knew that had caused it.

Jeff said...

Phew! All's well that ends well! Glad Jordan is okay. We are certainly familiar with the scares that dogs can give us!

Mistress Maddie said...

So glad to hear that whatever the problem,it seems to be getting better. Pet scares are the worst since tey can't tell us whats wrong.

Victor said...

I hope all is well with Jordan.

Lior Ashkenazi is one sexy actor. And he doesn't mind showing just what he possesses in them either!

Joie Mayfield said...

I'm so glad to hear that it's going to be no surgery! I was getting sad reading your post! Poor poochie. :(

Anonymous said...

Such great news to hear, Mark! I hope Jordan's is even better or perhaps back to normal and putting you guys at ease.