A month ago we posted a story about Spinner, a blind and deaf dog who recently arrived from a shelter in Spokane, Washington. At that point we didn't know why her eyes were completely white. Now we know.
Our vet in Helena, Dr. Brenda Culver, did an exploratory exam with Spinner under anesthesia two weeks ago. She found that Spinner actually has bright blue beautiful husky eyes ... but they have rolled forward towards the bridge of her nose! The white we're seeing is actually the back of her eyeballs. Brenda, who is a regular vet but has a special interest in ophthalmology, had never seen this condition before. She e-mailed photos of Spinner's eyes and the surrounding tissue to a veterinary ophthalmologist at Virginia Tech, asking "what is this?"
Last Wednesday, he told Brenda that Spinner appears to have an extremely rare condition called 'restrictive strabismus.' This affects the muscles that attach to the eyeballs. He e-mailed us a study on the condition from a veterinary journal. Of the 10 dogs in the study, four had both eyes affected, the other six had one eye affected. In the end, an international team of vets operated on a total of 13 eyes, and 10 had successful outcomes. The surgery is very complicated, and obviously it's not a 100% success rate. But we liked those odds.
On Thursday last week, I tracked down one of the authors of the study, Dr. Tony Basher, who is in private practice at the Veterinary Specialty Hospital of San Diego. He is a board-certified specialist in both veterinary ophthalmology AND surgery, making him one of only two vets in the world with that distinction. He is also one of only a handful of veterinary ophthalmologists who has performed surgery on restrictive strabismus cases. To make it even better, Dr. Basher was also geographically the closest to us of any of the opthalmologists who participated in the study.
We e-mailed Brenda's images of Spinner's eyes and the other info to Dr. Basher on Friday. This afternoon, Dr. Basher's office called with great news. Dr. Basher could see Spinner next Monday for an evaluation, and if all goes well, surgery is scheduled for Tuesday!
So I hopped on the phone to make reservations for Spinner and me to leave for San Diego on Sunday. We'll fly from Missoula to Seattle, then to San Diego.
Even if we can surgically correct the problem with her extraocular muscles, we don't know if her retinas are firing or if she has other ocular problems. There are a lot of unknowns here. We also may not be able to pull the eyes completely back to normal position, for instance, which would leave her with impaired vision ... but still vision. We just won't know how this is going to go until we do it.
Yet there's a chance -- and a reasonable one -- that we might be able to give Spinner her eyesight back. And there is no better gift we could give any animal than that.
I will be taking our laptop on the trip and hope to post updates on the blog, so stay tuned for progress reports early next week. In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed!
(Click on photos for larger image.)
Tobias & I will keep EVERYTHING crossed for Spinner, knowing that all will go well!
Posted by: ginger & Tobias | October 27, 2005 at 04:37 PM
My prayers are with Spinner! I hope all works well-Have a safe trip!
Posted by: Chris Nagle | October 27, 2005 at 12:05 PM
I hope everything works! Spinner is in my prayers!
Posted by: Chris Nagle | October 27, 2005 at 12:00 PM
Wow! Outrageous! Hope it goes real well.
Posted by: Karen SA/TX | October 25, 2005 at 09:06 PM
Awesome ! I can't wait to read the progress reports. Spinner is my favorite new dog at the ranch. Have a safe journey. My thoughts will be with you both.
Posted by: Leigh | October 25, 2005 at 03:03 PM