First let me say how sorry I am about the kitty, Heather, how very sad;
I totally get how upsetting it was. I found a kitty with a similiar
injury once right when I got to work, without a thought to my job I took
the kitty to the vet immediately, and almost got fired. The kitty
seemed in good spirits and didn't appear to be in pain, just thankful to
be found by someone. I too noticed he could not use his hind quarters.
The vet said there was no hope for that particular kitty. It was a
hard blow as he seemed so ok. I hope something can be done for your
particular little one; but as much as I respect homeopathy I do not
think this is the case for it!
And Susan, I am SO sorry to read about your dear dog. How is he/she
doing now? I have been wanting to get back to you as well as Wendy for
your kind personal posts, but life as usual ran over me this past week.
Sunday morning as I was out changing Snowball's diaper/bandage and
checking his wounds I noticed my sweet girl, Allie (his mama and my
first paca)was squinting her eye and it was weeping. Closer inspection
showed an injury. I had some old opthalmalic ointment from another paca
eye injury so used that and then had a busy day. Sunday eavening I was
checking it again and saw that it was indeed REALLY bad, much worse than
I thought. After all these years of not having a vet, I knew I had to
find one. So called a horse vet that lives close by that I have been
told for years is really cranky and hard to get along with so I have
never used her. She is definitely not a warm fuzzy human; but she got
right back to me and said this was indeed an emergency and in fact was
an emergency when I first saw it that morning. She came right down
(we're neighbors), it was nearly 9PM and almost dark.
One look with her flashlight and an instant dx of torn/ripped/slashed
cornea - really severe; she said she'd never seen one quite this bad. A
deep slash to the eyeball and the contents of the eye were leaking out
and the eyeball was no longer round, but pointed. Eyesight was already
lost. She said the only hope was to successfully keep infection at bay
and hope the eye would heal over; otherwise we are looking at vrey
expensive surgery to remove the eyeball (necessitating a trip to the
University and I have no trailer). That sight almost certainly was
permanently lost and I only had about a 50% chance of saving the eyeball
itself.
My sweet Allie has the prettiest softest eyes framed by the longest
sweetest eyelashes. I am heartbroken - and exhausted.
The regime is antibiotic eyedrops every 2-3 hrs around the clock;
Atropine drops 2x day; and oral antibiotic 2x day for 7 days. The drops
are for 6-8 wks she said before we would expect to see any improvement
at all. You can only imagine how thrilled Ms Allie is with all this.
It has been 5 days and both me and my 10yo dd are worn out. We simply
cannot physcially do the middle of the night so we do the last drops at
midnight and then get out as soon as it is light around 7AM to start
ovre again. So she is basically missing 1 - 2 doses. I cannot do the
eyedrops by myself or I would be out at 3AM doing it. But I cannot ask
my exhausted 10yo to get up in the middle of the night; she is already
falling asleep at the table or any time she sits down.
My question is - Vet gave a Banamine shot on Sunday night for pain and
inflammation; she said it would be optimal to give her the Banamine
daily. It is IM and the only place this little girl as enough muscle is
in her hind leg. I cannot give the shot there as she is a mighty
kicker. Vet could not find any info in her data base, nor could we find
anything in Dr Evans manual about giving Banamine orally. so I thought
I would check here to see if any of you know anything about this
possibility. It is of course impossible to know how much pain my girl
is in, she doesn't really appear to be suffering - except for having to
stay locked up in the tiny tiny barn to keep her out of the bright light
- this alone is the worst of all the insults I am having to administer
to her. I am letting her loose at night since I am not doing the night
time treatments anyway; so after midnight I release her. I am making
her son Snowball stay with her and he is definitely not happy about
this! Anyway, Vet said the Banamine was for inflammation of the eye as
well as pain relief and it would be good if we could figure out a way to
get it in her. Any suggestions? Remember I have noone to hold the paca
while I administer injections and this girl is a mighty fighter who does
not like to be messed with at all. My 10yo dd is not strong enough to
hold her if she is really struggling; tho she has been surprisingly
compliant with all the drops and meds, but getting crankier about it
every day.
My next thought of course is HOW did *this* happen? Coincidence? Or
related to the deep slashes on Snowball's neck? I know we have been
around about my intact male doing this to Snowball, but surely he did
not do this to Allie's eyeball!!? I am now beginning more and more to
suspect the rooster. I am seeing him go at several of the alpacas. The
other day Snowball and the intact male - Boy Blue - AND the rooster were
all going at each other and I had to go break them up. BOYS! :-(.
This is a really deep slash on her eyeball, just like the really deep
slashes on SB's neck. Which BTW are completely healed up. That
goldenseal is unbelievable stuff. I am still keeping bandaged tho to
keep the scabs intact and keep the dirt and bugs out. I have made a
really really dilute solution of the goldenseal (it is an alcohol
extraction) and am using that as well as the prescription antibiotic in
Allie's eye. Vet says there are really nasty bacteria that get into
eyes and I want to do everything I possibly can to avoid that. I have
seen goldenseal work some real miracles. I have not been able to figure
out anyway to devise an eye covering to protect her eye. Any
suggestions for that? If I could easily cover her eye - remember I have
to administer drops every few hours - she could go out with her buddies.
Thanks for any thoughts or suggestions,
Warmly, Janice
PS In the middle of all this we had baby chickens starting to hatch
out.....in the alpaca's hay. Only one has survived, the 2nd one was
fine in the morning when we checked, and a few hours later we went back
to remove the baby chicks to a safer location and the 2nd baby was dead
under mama :-(. We were so sad. It was such a cute bitty thing.
Really really sad to take and bury such a new life. Looked like it's
neck was broken. None of the other eggs have hatched out. When you
love critters there just seems to be no end to the heartache.
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