Harley update

I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I was hoping for the best.  I had my friend Heather (also an equine veterinarian) recheck Harley's eye today.  She believes that his eye has ruptured and the eye is no longer viable.  :(

That, unfortunately was his good eye.  Now he has hardly any sight at all.  We don't know what happened initially, just brought them in one evening and noticed his eye was all swollen and puffy.  The original injury happened about 6 weeks ago.  We doctored it on our own for about a week, because normally we get it back to normal within 3-5 days, but not this time.  We called Heather on a weekend because my boss was out of town and Heather was on call.  She thought it was a trauma injury and confirmed that what we were doing was the best option.  She said to expect improvement within a week or less.  Another week goes by and it's no better, so I have my boss come and do a recheck.  He decides the eye needs to be debrided, but refused to sedate him, and didn't do a very good job.  He told us to continue treating his eye with the ointment, and put the PRP in his eye twice daily.  We didn't have much luck with the PRP because it's a liquid, but we did our best.  The eye took a definite turn for the worse after the debridement.  We continued the treatment and Banamine.  Still no improvement...fast forward to this weekend.  I'm home and had a chance to get a really good look in Harley's eye in the daylight and am shocked at how truly bad it looks.  There was what looked like a greenish bubble on the cornea and  a bloody-red outline on the bottom section.  The eye also constantly tears.  Heather thinks the rupture has occurred recently, maybe today or yesterday.  But it's too late to do anything other than put him on antibiotics and continue what we've been doing.  If we can prevent infection, the eyeball should continue to shrink and eventually (hopefully) become very small and pain free.  Worst case scenario is that we're unable to control the pain and we'll be forced to have the eye removed.  I really don't want to do that, so we'll just take it one day at a time.  I don't think he's in horrible pain, and neither did Heather.  Since the eye has ruptured, the pain should be lessened and hopefully healing will be encouraged.  Just sucks.  Wish I would have had her out last week before it got so bad.  If only...

But I can't do anything about that now.  We'll continue taking care of our boy the best we can and pray for the best.  Heather had to chuckle at what a cheap date Harley is...the hardest part of a thorough eye examination is holding his head up.

That's my boy.  :)