It's Not All Puppies and Rainbows Part II

Louie's eye shortly after the accident.

Accidents Do Happen

As much as Louie is talented, he is equally or more so blind. This should not be, but can easily be, forgotten. Because Louie has such amazing mapping skills it's easy to forget, he just gets around so darn well!

One spring day, after his first surgery, Louie and I were getting ready to go for a walk. He gets so excited when he hears his leash and harness coming out. Louie's bouncing all over, bumping into my legs as I walk over to a chair to put my shoes on. He barks at me "are we gonna go, are we gonna go, come on come on come on".

With this enthusiasm we leave the house. Usually after about one block Louie falls into place and just happily walks along next to me. For that first block, however, he can be a bit rambunctious. He's smelling everything! He wants to go in every direction at once, smell this tree, smell that bush. That was the case that spring day. We had only walked past the neighbors house when Louie, walking on my left side as usual, took a very sudden and hard right. This happened just as I was lifting my left leg to move forward another step.

This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.

We connected, I felt sparks of pain and looked down. Louie's left eye and my knee made contact. I kneed the poor buddy straight in the eye! If it hurt me this bad, I can only imagine how bad it must have hurt him. He didn't yelp though, he didn't whine. He simply stopped and pawed at his eye. I turned around to head back the few feet to our house. I sat down on the porch and looked at him. Louie's eye was filling with blood! It was hard to tell because his eyes are already so cloudy and weird looking, but instead of a swirly grey-blue I saw red forming. Louie kept squinting and his eye was watering. Of course, it was a Sunday and my vets office was not opened. I tried to calm myself from the panic that was rising. I needed to think clearly, not just freak out.

Quick! Research!

I went upstairs and referred to my blind dog book. There was no real information of eye injury. I got online. I found information on hyposphagma.

From Wikipedia:

"A subconjunctival hemorrhage (or subconjunctival haemorrhage) also known as hyposphagma, is bleeding underneath the conjunctiva. The conjunctiva contains many small, fragile blood vessels that are easily ruptured or broken. When this happens, blood leaks into the space between the conjunctiva and sclera. Whereas a bruise typically appears black or blue underneath the skin, a subconjunctival hemorrhage initially appears bright-red underneath the transparent conjunctiva. Later, the hemorrhage may spread and become green or yellow, like a bruise. Usually this disappears within 2 weeks.

Although its appearance may be alarming, in general a subconjunctival hemorrhage is a painless and harmless condition; however, it may be associated with... trauma to the eye."

What?

Okay, skip over some words I don't know how to pronounce, look up some words I don't know the meaning of, pet Louie who's happily sitting next to me resting his head in my lap and... Phew. I felt instant relief. Finding photos that looked about what Louie's eye was like and confirming is was pretty much just a bruise felt better. I still made a vet appointment for first thing Monday morning. I wanted to be sure everything was okay, since he had just had surgery.

Can We Laugh?

When speaking to my vet the following day, he explained that the only danger with this kind of injury would be that blood clots may form and they would need to drain out of the eye. In a healthy eye this may plug the drain, making the pressure in the eye rise. This would essentially be causing temporary glaucoma, and if gone untreated, could cause irreversible damage and blindness.

Yes We Can.

Even in black and white: Louie's left eye never looked the same.

The vet and I both laughed. Louie was already blind, he already had glaucoma and he wasn't in much more pain. We dodged a bullet, I guess. Yay! Louie won't have any side effects from this but, boo! he already had those problems.

I reminded myself that it's all about how we look at things. Should I see this as positive? Or would this just serve as a painful reminder that my dog was blind and hurting? Screw that! Louie didn't think that was a problem. Louie wasn't mad at me for accidentally kneeing his face, just as I wasn't mad at Louie from crushing my knee cap with his eye socket. Louie was even happy to see our vet. The last time he saw him he just jammed needles into his eyes that made him hurt for three days. He still loved him! Louie's okay, we're all okay too.