Catching Idle Butterflies

Doggy Update

I’ll start off with another warning: the following may make you cringe.

When I came home yesterday, Rufus looked and acted much better. The day before and that morning, though, Rufus’s eye was swollen to easily twice normal size, and it had rolled back into her head, so when she opened her eyelid, all we could see was this bright pink and red blob. Every once in a while it rolled back to where we could see part of her iris. I started calling her Devil Dog, because did her eye look evil!

Dave came home for lunch yesterday to check on her. She couldn’t open her eye at all and it was oozing pus. She also shook like crazy because she was in such pain.

Dave took her to the vet right then. Dr Dockter cleaned up the ooze with a warm rag, then gave her a shot for the swelling as well as for the pain.

He told Dave to hold her down when he gave her the pain shot, because it would hurt.

Rufus didn’t even flinch.

Dr Dockter said, “Wow, she must really be in pain if she didn’t feel that.”

He then gave Dave a prescription pain medication to give her once a day for the next week.

So by the time I came home, the swelling had come way down, I could see most of her iris, and she was more her happy, “It’s playtime!” self.

It looked even better this morning. The swelling continues to go down, and though still a little milky, her eye is starting to appear the normal warm brown that I always found so beautiful.

I asked Dave if he thought she could see out of it.

“I waved my hand over the eye a few times,” he said, “and she did react. So at least she can see light and shadow out of it.”

One of my coworkers as a little kid had a hot piece of metal shoot all the way through his eye. It reacted much like Rufus’s eye did, but after a few weeks of pain and healing, there was no permanent damage. Eyes are resilient organs, especially considering how complex they are. I’m hoping Rufus’s eye proves to be as resilient.

For those who haven’t seen her, here’s a picture of her at about 3 months. She hasn’t changed much except for her size. I bet she’s easily three times larger now than in this picture. She still has that soulful look about her, too:

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I also thank all of you for your well-wishes. I know that's part of the reason Rufus is doing so well.