Life with Blind Louie

Hi, my name is Lanni. I’m 28 years old and live in NW Washington. I brought home a puppy for a litter of mutts that a friends dog had. Lab and Pit Bull mix. I brought him home when he was just seven weeks old. His eyes looked like they would be blue.
He was a happy, normal and very clumsy puppy.

Louie’s first vet appointment I mentioned his eyes to this vet I was meeting for the first time. She gave him a quick look and said he was young so his eyes were still developing. Mix breed dogs almost never have eye problems, especially when they are puppies.

I tried to believe her but something was just gnawing at me.

Louie started to whine one night and kept pawing at his face and rubbing his face up against things. I pet and rubbed him as he whimpered. The next morning I noticed a small white spot on one of his eyes. It’s almost like a tiny bubble. I asked the vet again on our next visit for round two of shots. He was only about four months old at the time. Growing quickly, learning, running, playing, active little guy. She looked at his eye and said it looked like he had bumped it and I should just keep my eye on it.

I went over to my parents house to use the internet. I searched for information on eye health in dogs and puppies. There was absolutely no information on puppies and minimal basic stuff about dogs. I did find a veterinary website that had information on different diseases. Reading along I got to the page about glaucoma. Everything thing I read was Louie text book. When I got to the photo of the eye it’s self I knew Louie had glaucoma and he was probably already blind in one eye. I also learned that it was most certain he would go blind in the other eye and I had been doing things, like simply using a collar and leash, could cause his pressure to spike. On top off all of that, I found out that Louie was suffering through tremendous pain. This tiny adorable puppy. It felt like the ground dropped out from under my chair. I was heartbroken.

I went to see a different vet. He gave Louie a simple pressure test and confirmed my fears. Louie had glaucoma in both eyes. He referred me to a vet that specialized in eyes.

I walked out of the specialists office $600 poorer and with three different eye drops to give one drop of each one in each eye, three times a day. Each bottle was over $100 dollars. Now I was heartbroken AND pissed. I didn’t feel like there was anything I could do for him.

After years of trying different things, we found something that worked. When I say worked, I don’t mean cured. Louie had injections in both eyes with Gentamycin. This stopped the over production of fluid in his eye. Without the pressure there would be no more pain! The trade off was giving up any hope at all that he would ever see at all. He could maybe only see changes in light in one eye by then anyway. Who cares about how he looks or if he can see if he is comfortable.

The story of blind Louie is amazing. We trained, tried different treatments, talked to people, socialized with all animals and most of all we had fun and loved each other. I am stronger and smarted because I know Louie. I feel lucky everyday.
I am writing his life story out, I just started and I hope you’ll read along and be inspired by Louie too.

Lanni

You can read more about Blind Louie at – http://lifewithblindlouie.blogspot.com/