Day 15- Happy Days Are Here Again

#BYECONE. Probably the best part of Stella getting her stitches out was the removal of the cone. Why? Freedom! No more banging into the backs of our legs! Cuddling! Done! The staff told us to keep it in case we ever needed it. It was filthy, bend, misshapen, our tormentor that began and ended this process.My husband slam dunked it into our garbage bins. Stella approved.

Stella's stitch removal required the surgeon, and two techs holding her down. If you can imagine someone riding a mechanical bull while using tweezers to delicately thread a needle, this is what my spouse and I witnessed on this happy, happy morning.

The surgeon explained that Stella's now, ectropic eye, is 100% cosmetic. I could sit here and say, yes, my dog is now more deformed than she was the month prior, but no one could have predicted such adverse results and I'd take cosmetic over ulcerated eyes any day of the week.

Stella was so excited to get her cone removed, so very very excited that we were told to consider leash training

Stella loving her new-found freedom

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Day 6- Surgery Nightmare & The Only Compress Technique Advice That Works

We had made up our minds to endure the hour trek to the Surgeon's, cone hitting everything in sight, an angry dog barking for her window to be put down, and me, angry that we would "just be wasting our time." Why? We're overly cautious. I can't tell you the amount of times in the past that we went back and forth for one ailment or another and ran her down to the vet, the ER, only to be assured she was fine. With that being said, you can't put a price on assurance and there was something that just irked us about her left eye. To go or not to go? Go. Always go. Stella's left eye looked much different to us than her right. When she figured out where we were, betrayal swept across that shaved face. She made us pay for it by causing a scene: pulling, yelping, pulling, repeat. We heard how much training she needed (no surprise there) but were devastated, shocked, surprised and angry with the state of her eyes. The ophthalmologist believed that not only...

1 Month Gone- Looking Back

Our recovery consisted of the highest highs, the lowest lows and every emotion from fear to exhaustion to exultation and back again. But it's over. I remember the night before surgery asking my spouse, "but how will we tell her apart from any other Lab without her signature runny eyes?"Her eyes are still runny, goopy, and now red, and less than idea, but it's over. We don't regret the surgery. We don't believe that we unfairly put our dog through this painstaking recovery. I do believe that Ectropic is better than Entropic and whether that means she'll have more eye infections, only time will tell. Our only recovery advice is, "just get through it. You're one minute closer to it being over." The three of us will have quickly forgotten (or repressed) what we endured and continue living our happy-go-lucky lab loving lives. Thank GOD it's over! Tomorrow Stella celebrates her 5th Birthday. Her entire recovery process has been a l...

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Since I am a firm believe that your body is constantly looking for ways to heal itself, my goal is to add pictures of Stella and see just how different, if anything, her eyes look in the months following surgery leading up to one year post operation. At a few different times we have needed to compress her eyes but otherwise find our eye surgery a distant nightma...memory. We are now onto bigger and better things- DOG TRAINING, but that is a different blog, for a different day. Of course, like any girl, Stella is generally only photographed on her good side.

Entropion Surgery- Stella's Recovery

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