I took Darla yesterday to see the ophthalmologist in Burlington, Dr. Vivian Jamieson, for her two-week post-surgery exam. I took the camera but left it in the van, so the photo above is from last week when Darla was under the lunch table, happily expecting another small treat after another round of eye drops.
In short, Darla's eyes are bright, comfortable, completely visual, and healing very nicely from the surgery. Dr. Jamieson is still not sure what was causing the reaction to the eye meds, but under her direction in recent days we had reduced the number of times Darla was getting the two glaucoma meds, and that seems to have helped. Most important, even with the reduced schedule for those medications, her eye pressures have returned to normal and stayed there. When we checked her pressures at the clinic yesterday, we got the same normal readings we've been getting here at home these past few days. We'll continue to monitor her eye pressures on a daily basis for a while just to make sure we have everything under control.
To address the discomfort from the drops, Dr. Jamieson is now having us add an artificial tears gel to her eyes about one minute before we administer the glaucoma meds.
Overall, Dr. Jamieson was very pleased with how Darla was doing and with how great her eyes looked. After the roller coaster we've been on, that was a real relief!
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After the eye check-up, I had a meeting with the clinic's client services coordinator, Alisha R., and Darla was napping under the chair I was sitting on. At one point during the conversation, Alisha said, "Do you realize she wags her tail every time you speak?" I'd heard the gentle thumping under the table but didn't realize it happened whenever I started talking.
Shortly after returning to the farm yesterday evening, I was sitting on the stairs in the mud room changing from outdoor boots to indoor footwear when Darla came looking for me. She walked right up to me, tail wagging, and then pressed her head into my chest. She leaned into me, nosed buried in my shirt, for what seemed like several minutes. I just wrapped my arms around her, hugged her tightly, and told her how much we loved her. I sensed this was her way of telling me, "Thank you for everything you've done for me." But I know she doesn't realize just how many other people are due those thanks.
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