I posted this on the bulletin board under GCC:

I have made the final decision to have my horse's eye removed.

A little over a year ago, someone shot a fence post in the pasture that sent wood flying into several horses' eyes. They had different degress of injuries. Two horses had their eye removed at the time of the accident, three horses only had minor corneal abrasions that were treated with antibiotics. J had a piece of wood in his eye that caused a stromal abcess and a melting corneal ulcer. I was called at work to come to the barn to the news that my horse was blind in that eye with a very serious infection.

The wood was removed and I took off from work to treat the eye every 2 hours around the clock for 10 days. The medications were tapered off, but he did not come off the final pain/anti-inflammatory meds until the next April - almost 5 months later. We were successful in treating the infection and controlling the pain. He recovered very well and is completely adjusted to being blind on one side.

Now my dilemma...

The globe atrophied - which we expected. When it was 75% the size of the other eye, all was well. When it got a little smaller, it caused his eyelashes to turn down and on windy days, his eye watered. The vet said we could remove the eyelashes to make him more comfortable even though he showed no signs of pain. I just have to assume that if your eye waters, it must be uncomfortable. We were going to wait for cold weather to do the surgery.

Well, cold weather is here and the eye has atrophied to 50% normal size. I spoke to the vet about it because I felt like the shrinking process was not going to end. She agreed and agreed with my idea that it should be removed. I have been researching options for implants, etc for the last month. Fortunately, I had the time to really look into this because it was not an emergency enucleation. The vet and a friend have assured me that he actually is not experiencing any pain at this point. I just needed to do something that was more of a long term solution.

So I have spoken to several people and equine opthamologists that tell me that the implants are generally rejected by the horses' bodies. I am not going to put him through 2 surgeries. So the final decision is that the eye will be removed and no implant will be placed in the socket. I am not going to do the granular tissue bed to fill the void because I have seen 3 horses where owners paid for this procedure and the eye looks no different from the first post surgical week. It also requires packing and unpacking gauze and then a final stitching closed. Why put him through that.

As soon as I find out how much my income tax return will be, the surgery will be scheduled. If my return covers the vet bill, the surgery will be immediately. If it does not, then I will have to wait until the end of February for my bonus to supplement the bill.

If you bothered to read through this long story, thank you very much. I just needed to get it out and prepare myself mentally for removing his eye, muscles, tear ducts and eyelids. This will be much harder for me than him. He has adjusted to the blindness and will be on meds for pain that will keep him very comfortable. This has just been a really tough decision for me.