Molly and Me

Mom and Aunt Nancy and I went to see Marley and Me a few nights ago. It was good, but sad too. I had read most of the book, so I knew a little about it. If people can get that attached to a dog who completely misbehaves, that they can't trust....imagine how much you can become attached to a dog that's obedient and sweet and more character than alot of people!! It's no secret how much I love my pooch. I hardly consider her a dog...she is our daughter. She has so much personality, loyalty, and love to give. She's the best. On Christmas Eve this year, I started noticing that she was keeping her right eye shut by squinting. I thought maybe she had allergies, so we gave her benadryl and joked about it, calling her "stink-eye." Christmas day we started realizing it was nothing to joke about. She was not herself at all, resting alot, and not wanting much interaction. (For those of you who haven't had the privilege of meeting Molly first hand, she LOVES interaction, and is incapable of being calm and sleeping when there is a big group. She is a playful girl!) She was still keeping the eye closed, but now we could see it starting to swell on the top and bottom of the eye. Later in the evening when I saw it opened (for a slip second) I saw that there was a bluish-gray spot on the eye. It looked kinda like a cataract or something, ya know how they are kinda ghostly or something. Anyways, after going back and forth, and it eating away at us, Zac and I decided we could not ignore this thing away, so we took her to the Animal Hospital. She was in so much pain, she whimpered and whined the whole way in the car, even tought she usually LOVES car rides!) To make a long story short, we were there for over three hours (not fun to be there anytime, but on Christmas Day it was especially unpleasant. Let's face it...no one wanted to be there. Not the staff, not the customers, not the dogs.) After an examination and a fleuroscein stain test, we were told she has a 4mm laceration on her eye. They called it a corneal ulcer. This was causing her iris to spasm, which the doctor informed us is "extremely extremely painful!" Can you imagine? I knew she was hurting, but for the vet to say that my little baby was in horrible amounts of pain, it just broke my heart. She was put on anti-biotics to prevent infection, anti-inflammatories, and pain killers. Bless her heart.
It's been a week and the swelling, and most of the redness and the grey spot have gone away, but it still bothers her alot. We ran out of the pain killer two days ago, and I felt awful for her. She likes the dark and she is resting alot, so hopefully she will be back to her old self in no time. It still looks pretty bloodshot, but I'm hoping that just means the blood is rushing to it, to help heal it, so maybe that is not a bad thing? I just know I want her to not be in an ounce of pain, and I want her to feel like herself again. If it is this upsetting for me to see Molly in pain, I can't imagine what my parents felt like when I was so sick in high school. It is a very helpless and miserable feeling. What will I be like when I am a mom and my little boy breaks his arm or something? If it is comparable to the emotions I have been going through over the last week with Molly, but magnified because it's your human child going through it...ugh, I can't even imagine!