You're putting what in my eye!?

Well, Old Sports, it's been quite a roller coaster this past few weeks. The reason I haven't updated my blog is because I wasn't supposed to stare at a computer screen for too long, and because I kind of wanted to make sure I knew what was going to happen to me before I blabbed about it online. But 4 vet appointments later, I'm ready to talk!

First question. Am I still considered a vegetarian if they're squirting my own blood into my eye every couple of hours? Spode says it grosses her out. Grosses her out! What about me!? And they wonder why I throw my head up in the air when I see the syringe...

Why were they squirting blood into my eye? Because, lucky me, I got a corneal ulcer on top of everything else. Sheesh. That felt like a bit much after having gone to surgery, come down with bad uveitis in my left eye, and having a reaction to a tetanus shot. Spode and I were just thrilled.  It was pretty awful to start with. Spode had seen my eye look a little odd with a tiny mark of cloudiness on it, so she stopped putting steroids in my eye and called the vet. A couple days later she came and my eye was swollen and weeping like crazy. It really hurt. Spode didn't take pictures of my eye when it was bad (just as well, I was in a very sad state. I even made the poor vet tear up when she saw me). This was my eye ulcer looking much better:

The ulcer in my right eye. Admittedly the camera flash removed some of the blue look. Without light shining on it, my eye was half blue and covered in blood vessels as the bottom. Yuck. 

So because of the eye ulcer, things changed medication wise. I was on a heavy schedule. All in all, I had something 15 times a day in the right eye and something 12 times a day in the left eye. Sigh. I was also stuck inside and still am.  We increased my painkiller and that helped a lot. The EDTA and blood serum sucked the most. The EDTA stung a lot, and the serum was just icky...

The vet had to come on Thursday, Friday, Monday, and Thursday. And then Mrs. Vet is coming again next Tuesday and Thursday to make sure all is still well and to adjust my medications if needed. On Wednesday we added a new medication and this one is an injection--honestly, I prefer an injection to having ointment in my eye again. Spode disagrees though! She is not a fan of giving horses needles, from my understanding...

It was a very dull week in my stall, but at least I was allowed a bit of hand walking inside the arena.

Lemme just sneak a peek out of this window...

I made my own fun, because walking in circles is pretty damn boring, old sports.

Sure, you amused yourself by braiding my mane, but I am still walking in endless circles...

Hmmm, let's see what trouble I can get into over here....

You are absolutely no fun at all, missy.

Other than the hand walking, I didn't do much at all. Let's just say I am VERY clean considering I have not had a bath yet. I spent most of the week catching up on my sleep. 

I even look dashing when I'm snoozing!

Oh, well. Maybe not all the time. 

Anyway, so the big news today is that after that week of hell, the ulcer has healed with zero complications. HUZZAH! I am feeling pretty lucky. Those eye ulcers can be pretty nasty if things don't heal as planned. So I guess the frequent medication sucked but really did help, so I'm grateful. Now the vet can start treating my uveitis in the ulcered eye and maybe I will get my clear vision back in that eye. I can safely say that my vet is better than any Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, Oculist, in the Valley of Ashes. My Mrs. Vet is the very best! 

As for eye number two, it's also improving slowly. Mrs. Vet could see my fundus for the first time today. For those of you who aren't equine eye experts like my Spode is becoming, the fundus is a part of the back of the eye that looks like a small white circle. It's visible now but still hard to see. Hopefully my vision will return as the cloudiness goes away! More waiting and more treatment. Such is life. 

Even though my ulcer is healed, I have to stay inside still because I'm on so much atropine that the bright light is hurting my eyes. I am allowed out for a couple hours if it's cloudy out, so Spode is hoping for an overcast day tomorrow. I hope so too! I'm sick of these four walls, I tell you!

My left uveitis eye. Looks perfectly healthy on the outside, not so much on the inside. 

My right ulcered + uveitis eye. It should start looking clearer inside and out soon, we all hope! And look! My eye lashes and whiskers are growing back great after surgery! I missed them lots. 

So that's my news for the week, old sports! Spode is hoping that it continues from here on out and I don't have any further set backs. We all are hoping that, especially Mrs. Vet I imagine! She's here all the time!

In other news, Spode is now working at the farm so at least I can gaze upon her while she mucks stalls. Kind of weird to see her in the barn and not with me though. I stared at her for a long time today to make sure she didn't forget I was there. Guess it gives me something to do when I'm not eating and making more mess for her. The messier I am, the more she has to come and clean my stall and see me... it's all part of my scheme for attention!

Until later, Old Sports.

Jay.