The Other Eyes

Tonight, I had a freaking fantastic amazing wonderful lesson on my badass ASB. But. I am waiting on media. So today's post is going to be about my buddy Griffin, and his eyeball, which have been consuming a large amount of my barn time lately. (((WARNING, IF YOU DO NOT LIKE EYEBALLS, DO NOT READ THIS POST)))

Griffy and me at his second show ever.
Griffin recently (3 weeks ago ish) had a growth removed from his left eyeball. It was suspected to be a squamous cell carcinoma, although the test results haven't come back yet. He came back from the hospital with ointments galore, and a fancy hood to protect his eyeball from harm.


He and Leo were eyeball twins for a while there. Griffin's surgery occurred before Leo's ulcer. Anyways. Griffin is a saddlebred, and he is very ~sensitive~. He also has aural plaques, which has led to him despising having his ears touched. Seriously, this horse's bridle goes on in several pieces, and he only has a browband at shows. So, the hood was an issue, and putting ointment in his recently surgerized (is that even a word? Operated upon?) eye was not working out well. Enter the eye catheter. 


This is a tube that is anchored in his eyelid so that liquid medication can be put into a port at the base of his neck, and then pushed through to his eye. It takes roughly 20 minutes, 3x a day, to get all three of his medications to his eye.

Pushing air
Griffin has slowly become a surprisingly good sport about all of this. The ointments were no bien, but the port solved most of the issues, and he even started to get used to having the hood taken off and on, which is a huge deal since it goes over his ears each time. 

His eye has slowly but surely been improving...Until today. Today, when I did his afternoon and evening treatments, something was different. He has started to hurl himself into the front of the stall and violently attempt to slam his eye against the bars. Something is Not Right. 

Too swollen to keep open
It took four people to get his eyelid open enough to see what the story is with his eyeball. What we found was not good.



His eye has remained brown and mostly clear throughout all of this. Suspect is a corneal abscess. Emergency doses of medications and banamine were given, and the vet will be there first thing tomorrow.


Cross all your crossables that we get it figured out. Griffy is a really great horse, and it sucks to see him in so much pain. ): 

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