A Difficult Month
This is likely the hardest post we’ve had to write to date, and is all the more jarring given how bright and optimistic the previous posts have been about our time in the Adirondacks. This is largely because those posts were written proactively, the day that we did those hikes, and not influenced by what has since been an extremely difficult month. I do want to assure you though that at this point, we are passed the hardest part of this trial, and that we are doing better and adjusting to our new normal.
Charlotte had such a great day on our first full day back in the Adirondacks. She had so much energy and enthusiasm hiking Arab Mountain, it was as if it was still 2016, she was still a puppy, and we were conquering firetower peaks together. Later that afternoon, Curtis and I went on another hike and let her rest at home. After returning home from hiking Panther Mountain, we were indeed greeted by a very happy puppy. We cooked dinner, she begged for our food and we cuddled on the couch together. But later that evening, Curtis noticed her behaving oddly, and quickly came to the conclusion that something was wrong with her eyes, to the point that we were unsure whether or not she could see. She had some issues with her left eye at the beginning of February, and I had taken her to a vet a couple times in Ottawa. I was concerned about glaucoma because I knew bassets are predisposed it it, but the vet ran tests and believed it was just irritated, so she just had us give her eye drops and an ointment. It was stable and she started acting normal again, but it never consistently looked “normal”. We continued the treatment in Oswego, and were in a false sense of security that this would work, but now Charlotte was clearly in pain, to the point that she wouldn’t or couldn’t open either of her eyes.
After a difficult and sleepless night, we called around all of the Northern Adirondacks looking for someone who could see Charlotte that morning; eventually landing on the Animal Hospital in Lake Placid. We drove the hour out to the vet where they did some tests to tell us what we already expected but were not ready to hear: Charlotte had glaucoma and had already gone irreversibly blind in both eyes.
Bassets, with their loveable eyes, are genetically predisposed to have glaucoma. The reason is unclear, but at some point in their lives, the eyes lose their ability to properly regulate fluid levels and pressure builds, sometimes (and in our case) quite rapidly. The pressure increases until the blood vessels supplying the retina are constricted, limiting blood flow, and ultimately causing retina cell death. The same thing can happen to humans. As was explained to us, if you’re able to catch and diagnose the glaucoma early, you can attempt to manage the pressure through eye drops. This was not the case for Charlotte, the pressure in her eyes was growing, seemingly exponentially, and by the time we saw an optometrist within 48 hours of her first appointment, the pressure had tripled despite having her on the strongest eye drops to fight it.
After taking in the news that Charlotte was permanently blind, we were referred to an eye specialist in Burlington, VT. While there was nothing we could do for Charlotte’s sight, the eye pressure is also extremely painful, likened to a continuous migraine by some glaucoma patients. Thankfully the vet in Burlington had an opening two days later, so we finished out our stay in Tupper Lake, monitoring Charlie, giving her eye drops around the clock and making her as comfortable as we knew how, while also dealing with our own grief.
On Friday morning, we left before dawn and made the long drive across the Adirondacks to Burlington where we met with an exceptional vet and tech who were more than kind to us and Charlotte. They confirmed the previous diagnosis and then laid out next steps. And while it seems extreme, the best care for Charlie overall was to remove both eyeballs completely. There were a few other, less invasive options, but, as was explained to us, her eyes at this point were doing nothing for her except causing her pain. As we mentioned, the pressure in her eyes had tripled even with being on eye drops, so it was in our best interest to have this done as soon as possible. At first it sounded like they wouldn’t be able to get her in for surgery for another 3 weeks, but when it was time to pay and try to schedule the surgery, the vet came out and said they had just had a cancellation for the following week. Obviously this whole situation was horrible, but I really felt God’s presence in the details of how the timing worked out. Not only in how quickly we were able to get Charlotte to a specialist or into surgery, but also how it all happened while Curtis had a month off so we were able to get through it all together.
While it was great that we were able to schedule the surgery only 4 days later, it still felt like such a long time to wait knowing she was in so much pain. In the short term, the vet manually relieved the pressure in Charlotte’s eyes and prescribed some more medication. These were short term fixes, but the change in Charlotte’s demeanor after the short procedure was incredible, to the point that we were able to take her on a couple short walks around Burlington, where we started training both Charlotte and ourselves on how to walk with a blind dog. Spoiler alert: she’s pokier than ever but just as sassy, and there are legitimately times when you wouldn’t even know she was blind.
We spent the next two and a half weeks bouncing around Vermont, going to surgery, and taking care of Charlotte, and we’ll write about our easier hikes and lazy adventures in more detail later. But Charlotte is doing quite well all things considered and we’ve made a couple decisions that we hope will make her life easier, while still allowing her to smell the world. We’re relieved to see that she still has her spunk and an interest in the things she’s always enjoyed, like going for walks, sniffing everything, eating her food and begging for ours, and soliciting belly rubs from other people. What matters most is that we’re together, and we are learning and adjusting to our new life.
