Posted by Dinah on March 4, 2009, at 7:53:51
I'm utterly perplexed.
I have a wee little dog with major brain damage on the left side of her brain and neurological deficits. One consequence of this is that she can't see in her right eye. The eye was fine, but she can't process the signals.
She recently got an eye infection, fortunately in the eye where she was functionally blind. Since she has a compromised immune system, the eye quickly went past the point where it could be saved even with antibiotics and hospitalization.
The weird thing is that since her eye was removed, she's gotten so much better! She used to only walk along walls to keep her orientation. Now she's trotting happily anywhere she wishes. She used to twist to the left. The first thing my son noticed when we picked her up is that she was no longer twisting. The reason she twisted, I think, is that she always looked a few feet to the side of us when we spoke. Now she looks right at us. She even barked her little head off when my mother came to the door last night. It made me want to cry. Suddenly I remembered that she used to be quite the little watchdog, and had hardly barked since she got sick.
I'm utterly astounded and utterly confounded. If I had any idea the results would be like this, I'd have had her eye removed years ago. It's been heartbreaking watching her struggle, and her life expectancy is not great. I feel like we could have given her back years.
Does anyone have any idea what this could mean? I always understood that the lesions in the left forebrain meant she couldn't see in that eye. Yet clearly she was seeing something. Maybe she was seeing the wrong information? So she couldn't trust what her eyes were telling her?
I know there are people here who are smart about brains. Does anyone understand?
I can't wait to tell the vets. But I could tell by what they told me that they had no clue that this was a possible outcome either.
poster:Dinah
thread:883671
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090226/msgs/883671.html