Memories by McMillan: Best Friends

So I know that I still owe you guys a catch-up of our move to Brisbane, Christmas, etc but I first have to put this out there. As some of you know my sweet Punkin was admitted to hospital last week and had surgery on Wednesday.

For those of you who don't know Punkin's history you can click here.

Over the weekend (last weekend) Punkin was squinting her right eye. This is not unusual for her since she usually does it every time she gets a new spot in her eye. Usually it goes on for a day or two and once she adjust to having it things are fine. Then Monday came around. I remember looking down at her during the day and thinking "Wow, that right eye looks completely white. I don't think old girl can see". I bent down, rubbed on her head and gave her a kiss. Poor girl! That night she was sitting in the recliner and I noticed that her eye was sunken back and really swollen. I called Jamie over to look at it and he agreed we needed to take her in. I called the vet and got an appointment for first thing the next morning. We didn't think it was an emergency at the time, just that she had probably scratched her eye on something so the next morning was fine.

At the appointment they examined her and said that there was no scratch. The vet thought that Punkin needed to be seen by a specialist and suggested that I leave her so they could fit her in since this person is usually booked out for months in advance. I agreed and Kylie wasn't too happy. We got to the door and she started hitting her leg saying "mon Punkin, mon Punkin". I felt so bad! She continued to call for her for the rest of the day.

I got a call later that day stating that Punkin had a number of things wrong with her eyes. She was diagnosed with Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye), Corneal dystrophy in both eyes, an ulceration of the right eye and an unknown growth on the left eye. The corneal dystrophy is what was causing the white spots so that was nothing new, everything else took us by surprise.

The surgery on Wednesday was to repair the dry eye and ulceration on the right eye and since she would be asleep they were going to go ahead and remove the growth from the left eye and do further testing if they need to. Evidently when the Dr examined the ulceration, the tissue in and around it just fell off. The plan was to go in and debride it and then put a lens over it so it can heal without her touching it. If all went well and she healed okay she would have surgery for the corneal dystrophy next (part 2) to remove all the lipid deposits from both eyes later on. During the surgery they found that her cornea was in really bad shape though and some of the spots were infected. Because of this she decided to go ahead and take them out so they didn't turn into ulcerations as well. She was able to get 99% if them but some of them were really deep and she said Punkin was in lots of pain so she didn't think it was a good idea to bring her home. They decided to keep her until Friday afternoon so she could get around the clock pain meds and antibiotics.

I picked her up on Friday and Kylie couldn't have been happier. She followed Punkin around everywhere, it was the cutest thing I've ever seen! If Punkin would sit on the floor so would Kylie. She would pet her and scratch her back, soo stinkin' cute! Today (Sunday) unfortunately Punkin was readmitted to hospital due to some swelling and pain issues. Her eye as pretty swollen, she was making some wining noises while sleeping and when I went to clean the eye/put her drops in it she actually snapped at me <---- not like her at all!! I spoke with Pauline (the eye specialist) before I took her in and she told me by the sound of things she would need to stay overnight for additional medications and a removal of stitches to check the eye out in the morning. Kylie took leaving her a bit better this time since I was able to coach her before hand that she would be staying. All this got me to thinking though.

I had no clue that Kylie was that attached. I knew that she loved her, but I guess I didn't realize that she was old enough to really have an attachment like that. After thinking about it, it broke my heart : ( I don't think I'll be able to handle the time when it comes that Punkin (or Budder for that matter) are no longer with us. How am I going to comfort her as well? Hopefully it's something I don't have to think about for a while. When it does happen though, thankfully I've been able to capture some great moments with Kylie and Punkin. How special is it that she'll be able to look back at these photos and always remember her 1st best friend!!

From the first day we brought her home Punkin felt like she had to be the protector! And to think we were worried that she would be jealous!

First day home (4 days old)