The trouble started a few months ago. Whitey’s right eye looked sore but there weren’t any obvious signs of trauma. After a few days it became significantly worse and she decided to hide outside for about two days. There were grave concerns but, to our intense relief, she re-appeared one evening and immediately ate a very large bowl o’ food. The eye had worsened and while a trip to the vet didn’t reveal the underlying issue, a course of cortisone pills and eye drops was prescribed. I’d never pilled a cat before, so it was an unpleasant learning curve. Whitey was adamant that she wanted nothing to do with it. But determination and scratches across my hands and forearms tended to carry the day. A few days later though she disappeared again, causing a significant amount of distress at HQ. Fortunately hunger brought her back and a strict indoors-only policy was enforced. Another trip to the vet showed a very high ocular pressure and little, if any, eye response to light. Whatever the eye was healing from had caused a blockage in in the anterior chamber, preventing the aqueous humor from draining. More medication, two trips to an ophthalmologist and another three visits to the vet all culminated in surgery.
De-nucleation of the right eye was required because the blockage wasn’t clearing and long term steroidal medication would do more harm than good. Day surgery at a very conveniently located cat clinic and five days of cat fentanyl later and she was well on the road to recovery. Because she’d been functionally blind in the eye for months already, she didn’t have a huge amount of adapting to do. Three weeks after the surgery she’s pretty much returned to normal with the exception of some odd head movements (missing whiskers, shaved off during surgery appear to be causing some confusion).
A stressful time, to put it mildly. A good health outcome, unfortunate as the situation is overall. But she’s back shouting for dinner, drinking from her cup and attempting to dig to China in her poop-pod. You can’t ask for much more than that, I say.
