Blind Dog Gilbert

Gilbert is blind today. His sight began to fail him on Sunday. He didn’t see Laura so well when she came to visit but recognized her more by smell.  He still had some sight in the light. His sight was diminished by dusk and darkness.
He is already down one eye.  My little pirate. Hereditary glaucoma took the sight but the eye removal took away the first useless orb after the sickening pain laid him low. Now he’s in pain again.
On Sunday he walked into a wall. I gave him eye drops and anti inflammatories. We were warned the second eye might go too. The glaucoma mostly gets both.
I had a noon appointment with the ophthalmologist for Monday.  The staff at Western Canada Veterinary Ophthalmologists are great. Dr. King who is young, beautiful, compassionate, very bright and very pregnant saw him.  His eye pressure had been very good when I had him tested a couple of weeks ago but now it was very high.
She gave him more of the old drops Cosopt (dorsolamide and timolol) and some new ones Travopost. The pressure came down. He became lighter, more his happy little self.  I went back to work. Belinda, the office manager who has a dog herself made sure I could get off and have Gilbert seen.   I love that the staff at Royal Columbia care.
I've been treating him since but he’s blind still. The eye sight might restore but maybe not.  I’m so torn up, walking him and feeling him tugging back in fear. The world is a scary place for him. I felt so terrible because I looked away a second and he walked full on “bang’ into a parked car.
He can only hear the ball, the ball he lived to chase. When it stops moving it’s lost.  He circles and doesn’t seem to smell it.  I'll have to dip his tennis balls in dead fish or cowshit or something else he likes to smell.
I know he loves my holding him and rubbing his back. He still loves the treats , the bits of Edam cheese, he really enjoys.  But he doesn’t seem so happy.  He’s sleeping alot.  The world is a different place. Glaucoma is experienced by a dog like a chronic migraine. I've given him his metalol anti inflammatory pain medication.
He loves people he knows, still greeting them tentatively.  But he’s so vulnerable, so tentative. The world is so strange.
I’m torn up inside, on the verge of tears, thinking of him. I would that I could save his sight. He loved to see. He was such a watchful dog. He sat bolt up in the car and got excited seeing deer and grouse by the side of the road, a hundred yards out. Now he curls up confused.  He’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this.
Dr. King isn’t committed to taking the eye out yet as she says the medication may restore the sight. It would be so fine if he could see again if only for a little while.
Now  I can only hold him, feeling his little body relax in my embrace, his little wet tongue darting out to lick my throat.  Then he’s big dog squirming to be free.  But he doesn't go far. He used to bring me a toy but now he just lies down  beside me, just touching.I think that reassures him. My presence. I’m here with him.  It’s all I can do and put the drops in his eyes, walk, him, feed him, talk to him.  We’ll get through this. We always have.