- Joined
- Feb 24, 2021
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- 7
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I'm in a really situation with my boy. He is a 11 year old siamese mix. In the summer he developed allergies with symptoms being super runny eye - over the course of figuring out how to treat this he must have scratched his eye and it turned into an Ulcer. To initially treat the ulcer we did antibiotics, antivirals, lubricating drops and put him in a cone. The transition to the cone caused so much distress that it led to a bladder blockage that needed an emergency ER visit - during this ER visit we detected a heart issue (always knew he had a murmur) but his heart rate was very low and they had to remove the blockage without anesthetic. Luckily it worked. Following this we went to a cardiologist and Freddy got a bad diagnosis - the murmur is secondary to a mild dynamic right ventricular outflow tract obstruction. Freddy has third-degree atrioventricular block which is secondary to degenerative conduction disease - the take home of this is a 1 year prognosis and he can not ever go under anaesthetic as his heart rate is too low.
The ulcer is not healing and actually has progressed to a seqestrum and we don't know why. We have tried about 10 different regimes of systemic and eye drop regimes over the past 12 weeks, we are going to the vet hospital/opthamologist every two weeks. In a normal case they would perform surgery to help alleviate the pain and heal the sequestrum, but the opthamologist can not do any of the procedures without anaesthetic.
Therefore the situation we find ourselves in is attempting on-going treatment, but there has been no improvement. As far as quality of life - he can't open that eye and it is constantly weeping. When he has the cone on he won't eat, drink or use the litter box (i have tried every dish and litter box option) so I was doing a few hours supervised with no cone where he could do those things - however he had another need for an unblocking, it has been miserable. The rest of the time he just laid around.
The last month I made the decision to remove the cone as his eye was not improving. His quality of life has slightly improved with this as he can eat, drink and use the litter box on his own schedule. He sleeps with me again at night and purrs when I cuddle him. Asides from that there is no quality of life. Eyes almost always closed, No interest in toys, scratching post, looking out the window, no meowing and chatting (all his old pre-ulcer behavious). The opthamologist is not optimistic he will get better on his own (and we are doing eye drops 5-8X a day systemic anti-virals and lysine tabs) without surgery. It could take months or years, and with his heart condition we do not even know how long he has. That being said if he wasn't for the eye condition he would currently have a normal quality of life and we would just be waiting for his heart to eventually give out. Blood work is all clean (no kidney, thyroid, liver issues etc.).... I'm at a loss of how I decide if his eye is causing too much pain and I should let him go or if I should let him live like this..............
The ulcer is not healing and actually has progressed to a seqestrum and we don't know why. We have tried about 10 different regimes of systemic and eye drop regimes over the past 12 weeks, we are going to the vet hospital/opthamologist every two weeks. In a normal case they would perform surgery to help alleviate the pain and heal the sequestrum, but the opthamologist can not do any of the procedures without anaesthetic.
Therefore the situation we find ourselves in is attempting on-going treatment, but there has been no improvement. As far as quality of life - he can't open that eye and it is constantly weeping. When he has the cone on he won't eat, drink or use the litter box (i have tried every dish and litter box option) so I was doing a few hours supervised with no cone where he could do those things - however he had another need for an unblocking, it has been miserable. The rest of the time he just laid around.
The last month I made the decision to remove the cone as his eye was not improving. His quality of life has slightly improved with this as he can eat, drink and use the litter box on his own schedule. He sleeps with me again at night and purrs when I cuddle him. Asides from that there is no quality of life. Eyes almost always closed, No interest in toys, scratching post, looking out the window, no meowing and chatting (all his old pre-ulcer behavious). The opthamologist is not optimistic he will get better on his own (and we are doing eye drops 5-8X a day systemic anti-virals and lysine tabs) without surgery. It could take months or years, and with his heart condition we do not even know how long he has. That being said if he wasn't for the eye condition he would currently have a normal quality of life and we would just be waiting for his heart to eventually give out. Blood work is all clean (no kidney, thyroid, liver issues etc.).... I'm at a loss of how I decide if his eye is causing too much pain and I should let him go or if I should let him live like this..............