Small but significant

I worked Saturday, and had a pleasant morning of nearly all wellness appointments. The one exception was an easy eye case.

A new client brought in her terrier with a squinty red eye. I could see that the edge of the cornea had a bluish haze from swelling, and it certainly was red. But there also was a brown foreign object stuck in her cornea at about 10 o'clock. It was tiny but causing a large problem.

"I don't know how she did it, but she's always tearing around the yard," her owner told me. "When we lived in California she inhaled a foxtail and required general anesthesia. I still have that burr in a baggie at home. It cost me $600."

This terrier was sweet but wiggly. I recommended a reversable sedative before I went poking in her eye with sharp forceps. After she went from perky to limp, the small piece of mulch came out easily. It was about this big: 0

I debrided the small ulcer it made and flushed with lots of saline, and sent her home with antibiotic and antiinflammatory drops. I put the tiny offender on a gauze in a ziplock baggie. "Here's your $200 piece of mulch!"