The Pressure is Off

I got to go to "see" Dr.Weigt today and have my eyeball pressure read. AP has been real good about giving me my drops twice a day to help my eye feel and look better. There were some really nice people in the waiting room that gave me lots of attention. One really nice lady had a dog with a prosthetic eye like mine, she and AP got to chat about that.
Once in the room they put in the drop that makes the eye a little numb and then tapped the surface of my eye with a Tonometer pen until it beeped.The pen measures the pressure of the eye and too much pressure is bad and that is why I had to have surgery on my other eye when I was younger. The pressure was really high and was causing my eye to swell and I had really bad headaches.My reading today was 14 which is down from in the 20's so that is a really good thing. AP and Dr. Weight are very happy that the eye is responding to the medications and so am I.

Really? Seriously?

AP here:
I noticed a few days ago that Tonka's remaining real eye was looking very red and with everything else going on I put it down to allergies. I should have known that was way too simple an explanation. I caught it just right this morning in the full sunlight and he has a small sliver of blood on the bottom edge of his cornea. If you follow this blog you will remember that we have "been here and done it". Tonka was known as "bloody eye guy" for a short spell and then since that interfered with the drainage of that eye he became "giant eye guy" as the eye began to swell in response to the interocular pressure.
End result of all of that was the removal of the contents of the eye and the insertion of a prosthesis.
I am wondering at what point we both finally break!!

****UPDATE***

Took Tonka to see the amazing Dr. Weigt this evening and she really is such a great person as well as an Ophthalmologist. Her and her staff are always so good with the Tonka Man. His pressure in the eye is up to 23 and he does have that little sliver of blood hanging out in the eye but it is only the equivalent of a few drops. Pressure needs to come down because that is what will dictate whether surgery is ever necessary. Normal range is 10-20 so it's not that high yet. If the pressure gets real high it is very uncomfortable (pain) like a migraine so we have upped his eye drops and we will re-check in 10 days. She is hopeful that the inflammation and Glaucoma will get back under control.

We can rebuild him

We have the technology

We can make him better, faster, stronger..
We will give him A Bionic Eye!

So everyone is way behind with the blogging but I wanted to get this up for those that have been asking. I had my follow up appointment today with Dr. Gift and my pressure that was already at 25 in my left eye is now at 37. That is definitely the wrong way and so AP has made the decision to have him perform surgery on it. I am going to have an evisceration with implant done. Dr. Gift will remove the contents inside the eye leaving the actual shell and insert prosthesis into the shell - sort of like a superball. My eye will then heal around that and will still blink and move but no more stuff inside to create pressure problems. This webpage has a pretty good explanation http://www.michvet.com/library/ophthalmology_IOP.asp and some pictures. My left eye has always been a problem and gives me really bad headaches so I won’t miss it. It has started to stretch from the pressure so it is best to do it now before it gets out of control. My surgery is on the 15th and I will have to be quiet and heal for a few days which for me will be the hard part. Those of you in the DC area that want to see me before my Bionic Eye can find me at the Big Bad Woof on March 13th. http://www.thebigbadwoof.com/ with my buddy Liam and some other awesome Pyrenees that are looking for a forever home.

May 2009

AP and I were walking in the park this morning and the sunlight hit me just right and she noticed that I had a pool of blood sitting in the bottom of my eye. She called the Vet and they told her to get me to the eye Dr. right away. So off to see Dr. Gift we went... I like him he really wishes he could help me see, but he cant. He was more concerned about the protein junk in my other eye and put me on all kinds of medicine and I have to go back in 2 weeks. He told AP that if the junk clogs up my eyes they might have to remove them. She didnt seem to happy about that but it didnt bother me - my eyes dont work anyway.