Dear Angel Chuck Billy, tomorrow will mark one week since my enucleation surgery due to Iris Bombe caused by Golden Retriever Pigmentary Uveitis, and what a week it has been! Although I’m sure you have been keeping a close watch over me, I thought I’d give you and our friends an update.
Thankfully, each day finds me feeling more like myself! I’m navigating the roundtrip from my dog bed in the living room to my water bowl in the kitchen with little help from Mom and Dad, and not relying on bumping into things quite so much. Now mind you, I’ve had a lot of practice towards this milestone, because my night vision was basically gone for a while, and in recent weeks my overall vision was mostly like seeing through what my eye doctor described as the circumference of a drinking straw. But regardless, I’m getting to where I want to be! Well sort of, after a deep sleep, or if I’m overtired and fighting sleep, I need help navigating. However, Mom and Dad are right there by my side to help.
The biggest milestone I’ve achieved is returning to neighborhood walks! Angel Chuck Billy, all that training you did to teach Mom and Dad to walk at a heel, have really come in useful for my current situation. I know exactly where they are, and together we navigate with ease! So much so that a neighbor, who knows the situation, complimented me that you’d never know I was blind based on my happy gait and big goofy grin! And although I can’t see to do neighborhood patrol, my nose and hearing are compensating. For example on a short driveway walk, I caught the scent of a deer. So I stopped, refused to move, faced in the direction of where the smell was coming from, and gave a happy tail wag. It took Dad a moment to catch on to what I was doing. Would you believe he tried to get me to keep walking! But I stood my ground until he spotted the deer standing quietly in the wood line, and proceeded to congratulate me for a job well done!
Keeping me on a routine has also greatly helped in this transition. So once again, a big thank you, my brother, for keeping us all on a strict schedule all those years. I’m happy to report that despite it being 17 months since you relocated over Rainbow Bridge, Mom and Dad have been maintaining that schedule. Being blind can be very disorienting in term of knowing morning from night, but so far I continue to wake Mom at my usual time between 4 and 5 am, and in the evening I curl up and drift off to sleep at our bedtime. However, being a creature of habit also has its drawbacks. As you know, for years we’ve been on a strict schedule administering my eyedrops. Mom and Dad would rearrange plans to ensure someone would be able to give them day and night, and even on adventures, we’d pause in the action to give me my drops, much to your annoyance sometimes. I know I don’t need them anymore, but at the appointed times, even though the alarms on Mom and Dad’s phones have long been turned off, I still make my way over to the kitchen, tail wagging, waiting to get my drops. I was confused the first few days not getting them. But now Mom gives me a treat at those times, which is way better than the eyedrops! I probably should have been getting a treat with the drops all along! But I’ll let bygones be bygones, and just be happy I’m getting treats now.
Speaking of food, I’m on a lot of medications. From post-surgery medications that will soon be ending, to my anti-fungal pills for the Aspergillosis, as well as my thyroid and blood pressure meds, it is a lot to take. So I hope you don’t mind, but I really changed your well-defined mealtime schedule. Not to brag, but in addition to the regular meal times, I get extra small meals to keep my tummy from getting upset, as they space out giving all those pills to me. I know as I get weened off the surgery meds, the extra meals will eventually go away. But right now I totally love living like a Hobbit with my Breakfast, Second Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. Angel Chuck Billy, I’m sure you’re proud of me for getting Mom and Dad on that new schedule!
Another change we made, since you left, was where I sleep. I know we had a great thing going turning the former guest room into our bedroom. But after you crossed Rainbow Bridge, I was lonely. At first Mom joined me in that room, then I eventually joined them in the big bedroom, but then the second fungal surgery in November made it that I had to relocate again. Among the many complications following it, I started having short episodes of blindness. It wasn’t safe for me to do stairs anymore. Therefore, I started sleeping downstairs in the living room. At first Mom and Dad took turns sleeping on the couch to keep me company. But as I healed from the previous surgery, I showed I am a big boy now and could sleep downstairs by myself. Oh boy those were fun times! I could play with our basket of toys anytime I wanted, and there was no one there to prevent me from sleeping on the couch! Anyways, without realizing it, by sleeping downstairs for months, I got real good at navigating it in the dark with my decreasing night vision, and through the short stints of being blind. Oh and one thing that won’t change is the tiny couch! Mom and Dad promise they won’t make any changes, now that I’ve got it mapped in my mind. That’s the reason why now I’m adapting so well to being completely blind!
Not everything has been going smoothly though. On Monday I started sneezing blood. You may remember my first nasal fungal surgery back in September, the infection had advanced to the point that it caused an intense nosebleed the morning of my procedure. So needless to say, a bloody nose gets Mom and Dad very worried. As of now the theory is my current nosebleeds are NOT due to the Aspergillosis. Instead, the eye doctor believes that due to a decrease in swelling from the surgery, when I sneeze I release some blood clots that may have formed. These nosebleeds are short lived, only occur after sneezing, and hopefully will decrease as I continue to heal. However, if they increase, then I will need to visit my Internal Medicine doctor to see if there is anything else we can do to stop it. As of this morning the blood is only a trace amount when I sneeze. Wow, Mom and Dad pay attention to every little thing! Once again, I thank you for teaching them through your investigations that attention to detail is important. The Aspergillosis is still in my left nasal cavity, but hopefully the slow working medications will help.
Thank you Angel Chuck Billy, for always watching over me, preparing me for this new chapter of my grand adventure, and guiding me onward! Also thank you for starting this blog and setting up those social media accounts. Through it we have made so many dear friends, whose kindness, prayers and love, have meant the world to us on my health journey. Words cannot express how much it means to me, Mom and Dad, which is why we have been so uncharacteristically quiet. I’m at a loss for words to thank everyone for surrounding me in love.
