How Trinket the Dog Lost Her Sight
I recently ran across a post from a woman how had one very special dog named Trinket. I thought her story needed to be heard so I posted it below.
One of my dogs had a condition called anterior lens luxation, but but she wasn’t blind until after her surgery. This is her sad story, related here in order to help prevent this from happening to anyone else’s precious pets.
The Events Leading to My Dog’s Blindness
It happened one morning. Trinket and I had been out hiking the day before and when she came downstairs, she was “feeling” for every step. Ever so slowly she made her way downstairs. Then she sort of wavered to where she thought the door should be, but turned around in circles unable to understand that she was behind the open door, and not at the threshold. That was my first morning. When I took her to the vet, he checked her for glaucoma and diabetes. Breathing a sigh of relief, he said, well the good news is that she doesn’t have glaucoma or diabetes. But I think her lenses are out of position. “You could go to the veterinary ophthalmologist. He can do a lens replacement in one eye and she’ll do just fine with only one eye.”
So I called and a couple of weeks later, we went in for our consultation. The local veterinary ophthalmologist was seeing three patients simultaneously that day. Each of us went in for the initial exam. Then got additional drops and went back out to the waiting room. Then he saw each of us again. When I got back into the examining room, he gave me the bad news. Trinket couldn’t have lens replacement. The tissue that holds the lenses in place had deteriorated completely and there was nothing to attach a new lens to.
Trinket was tested for glaucoma (again) and then he told me that her lenses were floating in front of the iris. (Although he didn’t tell me at the time, I have since learned that this condition is called anterior lens luxation.) He said it was a potentially painful condition and said the pain could be prevented by surgery. He told me about two procedures. One was lens removal. Whereby the lenses would be removed from the eyes. The other was what he called “couching”. He said that the lenses would be placed back behind the iris. Pointing to an area in the cross-sectional picture of the eye at about 5 o’clock (pupil at 3 o’clock), he said that he would put a few cuts on the inside of the eye and scar tissue would hold the lenses back there. He strongly recommended the couching procedure, saying that at Trinket’s age, then nearly 14, he didn’t want to put her under the anaesthesia for as long as a lens removal would take. That was all the information I got from him.
I left the office thinking “why would you do the other procedure, when this one yields the same result with less risk.” Although I was in shock because I had gone up there expecting to have lens replacement, I am quite certain of what was told to me.
After crying most of the evening, I called and made an appointment for the couching. After all, if I could prevent her any pain, I was going to do it.
The Devastating Results
I took Trinket up to the clinic early that morning. I arrived before the clinic opened and walked her around the frosty grass a while, feeling apprehensive. Only the night before I had held a treat up in front of her with a strong light at my back and she had followed it with her eyes. But when the office opened, I took her in, shaking of my apprehension.
Killing time at the nearby Indianapolis shopping facilities, I called at about noon to see how she had done. I was told that the procedure had gone well and I could pick her up at about 3.
I took her home and carried her into the kitchen while I went back out to the car to get some packages. When I got back, I couldn’t find her. She had gone upstairs by herself. I hadn’t seen her walk anywhere yet, so I went upstairs too and was shocked to see her hitting the walls of the hallway over and over again. Clearly her sight was much worse than it had been. I turned her toward the stairs and was again shocked because she walked right off of the top step and fell about 8 steps to a small landing. Sick to my stomach, I rushed to pick her up and I didn’t let her walk anywhere else all evening. I thought that there must have been blood inside the eye and it had temporarily taken away what light perception she had. Since it was too late to call then, I waited until the next morning. I had to go to work the next day, and since I was very busy, the veterinary technician called me to see how Trinket was. I said I thought her eyes looked OK, but how long would she be so blind? The technician said, “she isn’t going to get any sight back, we did a vitreol injection”. I was again, in shock. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t like the sound of it at all. The technician, sensing my shock, told me to wait a minute while she checked with the ophthalmologist. After a minute, she came back and told me that he said he had told me about that. Well, friend, in all honesty, he did not.
By the time I went back for the 10 day check-up, I had decided there was no profit in getting into a “you say, I say” argument with him. He examined her eyes and said, “she was going to lose the rest of her sight within 6 months, we just took it away a little earlier.”
I said nothing. I didn’t believe him, but the damage was already done. Trinket’s sight was never coming back no matter what kind of verbal victory I could have.
The Aftermath
Since then, it has been a little bit of hell. The ophthalmologist had told me that Trinket could eventually go hiking and backpacking again. But there is no way she could do that then, or even now. v I don’t know how he defines the word, “hiking”, but anything other than a casual stroll on a well-defined path is out of the question. No more ladders, stiles, scree, loose rocks, boulder climbing or steep grades. Even the stroll is going to be a challenge.
The first week I nearly lost her completely. I was in the basement folding clothes and didn’t heard her coming down the stairs until she was half down. Well I watched her the rest of the way and she seemed OK. Then I did a quick scan of the basement to see if she could hurt herself and decided it was safe. So I let her go. After a little while, I realized that I didn’t hear any little puppy toenails on the floor. I went looking for her. I called and called and she didn’t let out a peep. After a long search, I found her. Nose down behind the furnace in the sump pump hole. Thank God it was dry, or she would have drowned to death in only a few inches of water.
All the books had led me to believe that blind dogs make “miraculous adjustments” memorizing where the furniture is and how to get around. Well, friend, I’m still waiting for that adjustment. She gets where she wants to be for the most part, but not without her poor little nose taking a beating. On the blinddogs list, we have discovered that those miraculous adjustments seem to be reserved for dogs that are very young when they go blind. The older the dog is when he/she goes blind, the harder and longer the adjustment is.
Since Trinket can no longer see, she is afraid to walk on strange paths anymore. So she can’t go walking with me in the evenings without this stroller. I think she looks cute, don’t you? At least she can still enjoy the new scents and sounds with this. Other pics
Personal Problems
I have had a very had time adjusting to this situation. I have been very upset. I went into a pretty deep depression, unable to eat or sleep for about 2 months. Only a necessary business trip snapped me out of it. I believe that the blindness wasn’t necessary and I have had a hard time forgiving myself for not protecting Trinket better. Furthermore, I believe that the ophthalmologist either confused my dog with someone elses’, or he used Trinket as a guinea pig. I resent the fact that by neglecting to tell me about the injection, he robbed me of any chance I had to make a responsible choice. I think he lied about the prognosis of “6 months until total blindness” in order to cover up his mistake &/or deception.
I have since learned that Trinket’s condition, anterior lens luxation is associated with glaucoma. But Trinket had been tested for glaucoma and she didn’t have it. The injection is done in glaucoma cases in order to stabilize the pressure inside the eye. It has the side effect of killing the retina. If the lenses hadn’t been treated somehow, she might have developed glaucoma, but she didn’t have it yet. At the very least, I would expect these proceedures would save whatever vision possible. What the local ophthalmologist did destroyed what vision Trinket had left. If he had done the lens removal, she would have still had some perception of light and dark, in my opinion. But he robbed me of that possibility by not telling me everything he intended to do. While there was a considerable price difference between the two procedures, price was never a consideration for me. Remember, I went up there prepared to pay for lens replacement.
Another time the injection is used is in the case of diabetic dogs. Blood vessels grow inside the eye to the extent that it causes blindness. In order to stop this, the injection is used. But it does kill the retina. Remember, Trinket had already been tested by my regular vet. She had neither diabetes nor glaucoma. Since the eye surgery, she had been in to the regular vet to have her teeth cleaned. Since she is so old, we did a blood workup on her before she was anaesthetized. All tests, including crea (liver), kidneys, cbc, bun, potassium, sodium, and glucose were normal. Therefore, the business about anaesthesia being dangerous was unfounded as well
While anterior lens luxation is often associated with glaucoma, it is well known that the condition is also often idiopathic. I firmly believe that the ophthalmologist made many unfounded assumptions about Trinket and her state of health. There was no assessment of her retina, to my knowledge, and he didn’t do any bloodwork to see if his assumptions about her ability to withstand anaesthesia was accurate or not. Both Trinket and I are paying the price for his arrogance.
Trinket, hiking on the very last day she could see.
Trinket is the black and white blob near the second large rock from the bottom.
My advice
It is too late for my poor Trinket. She is hopelessly, irrevocably blind. However I feel there is a lesson here for anyone who might be considering surgical procedures on their pets. I would back the veterinarian into the corner and repeatedly ask, “have you told me everything?”. I would annoy him/her as much as possible. Remember, you and your pet will pay forever if this person makes a mistake. Take care to find out everything you can about it.
If you can afford it, get another opinion. In the case of veterinary ophthalmologists that means a considerable drive to find another one. But I would give anything if I had done this before allowing this man to blind Trinket. Find out the exact medical term for the condition your pet has, and find out as much as you can at the library or on the internet before making a final choice.
Ask for references. In fact, I had already been told about this man’s tendency to use more radical means than is necessary by a friend, who had taken her Siberian Husky to him. The ophthalmologist wanted to do radical, mutilating surgery on Brandy. He wanted to take the eye, plus some surrounding bone. My friend was wise enough to seek other opinions, and Brandy’s tumor has been controlled with prednizone. While the prednizone might shorten her life, that is the decision of the owner, not the ophthalmologist. I would now give anything if I had listened to my friend and gone to another clinic. It would have meant a considerable drive, because there aren’t any other ophthalmologists in Indianapolis, but ultimately it would have been worth it. .
While I’m sure that the local ophthalmologist is competent surgeon, I feel that he makes decisions that should rightfully be made by the owner of the pet. In our case, he didn’t tell us all the pertinent details. And I blame myself for some of this. I should have asked far more questions and done more research. However, I DO think that it is the responsibility of any surgeon to make sure that you understand the procedure, it’s consequences and the risks beforehand. But, since we live in an imperfect world, we should learn to protect ourselves too.
Only you can protect your little furry baby. He/she is completely dependent upon you to make decisions for him/her. You won’t get a second chance to do it right.
Thank you for your patience with this long description of what happened to Trinket.