Poor Old Chopper

Since the day after Halloween Chopper has been fighting a nasty infection of some sort. The morning after I took his picture in his Dopey costume he woke up looking like Rocky Balboa with a big swollen crusty nasty eye.  We of course went the vet immediately but it wasn't our regular vet and he prescribe some antibiotics and sent us home.  A few weeks later he got his teeth cleaned and got knocked out and the vet was supposed to scrape his eye but since it was almost gone they didn't.  Then he got boarded for Thanksgiving and when I picked him up it was back.  Sheesh. 

I called the vet and we got more meds and he was doing pretty good.  Then Christmas and the poor old boy got boarded again.  From what I can tell it wasn't quite gone yet and he picked at it and made it worse.

You can see his right eye is all red and missing hair.

I tried a cone for a few days to keep him away from it but it wasn't enough. So back to the vet we went. The doctor put him on more steroids and antibiotics and said to come back in a week.  We went back and it was better but the vet did a heart worm test (negative) and put him on a new flea medicine that also blocks mites.  At this point they would have done a scrape of his eye if he didn't think vets were devils in white coats.  There was a lot of fuss about how they should have done it when he had his teeth cleaned.  The vet said to come back in two weeks.

By the time of our next appointment he was looking pretty good to me but the vet was still worried and said that it could be an auto immune disorder which could be pre-cancerous and we had to take him off the steroids to see if it came back. And come back in two weeks. And another two weeks of antibiotics  Well that was not a fun car ride home (Chopper barking and me hysterical on the phone.)

So today we went in for our another visit.  He looked fine to me but he had looked ok to me the last time as well.  The vet gave us the all clear today!  But still no definitive answer on what was the matter, which sucks.  A few more doses of antibiotics left to go and I will be happy to not be spending Thursday afternoons at the vet anymore. (Once I got home I realized he needs vaccines next month so we get to go through this all again.)

So after 13 weeks, 5 vet appointments, 8 weeks of antibiotics, 6 weeks of steroids, and 5 days with a cone, his 1 nasty eye infection is (hopefully) gone.  On the upside I can use the cone to make him a martini glass for Halloween next year.