I remember when I first met Smidge, she had a blueish eye. The rescue organization hadn’t had time to check her out fully yet – she had only been there for six days – and gave me a referral, along with the first copay, to the Eye Dogtor.
Shortly thereafter, Smidge went bizonkers for the Thanksgiving turkey and lost a fight with another one of our pets, resulting in a doggy ER visit and emergency surgery to fix proptosis. I won’t make you Google that: her good eye bulged out. Still so gross to type.
I was told before surgery that Smidge may never see again in that eye. I was told by her Eye Dogtor that she likely had no vision, but was behaving too aggressively to take the eye exam properly. To be fair, I wouldn’t like it if someone faked me out with their hands repeatedly either. But if we’re being honest, Smidge has a history of getting a little snarly with people too close to that mug I love so much.
Her bad eye – the blueish one – was likely due to injury or a fetal abnormality. Judging by her reaction to the eye exams, and humans in general, the Eye Dogtor deduced it was likely injury, something I suspected all along.
How much could Smidge see? We didn’t know. The vet showed me how to test her eyesight by carefully swinging your fist near her face, and abruptly stopping close to the eye. We also had special eyedrops to help reduce scarring.
Many moons later, probably a year or more, my father was walking Smidge in the dark for me. We were out late for some reason, so a dark walk was all we could do. My dad told me that Smidge reacted to a person while on the sidewalk, but the person was walking near the basketball court, some 50 feet away.
“I think she can see better than we think,” he told me.
The next day, in the light, I got down on the dining room carpet and told her to focus, a command she was ok at. She stared at me and I saw her blink, both eyes, both times, when I swung my hand and abruptly stopped.
From then on, her vision became sharper, and she could utilize all of her senses to find squirrels and birds that I couldn’t see right away. She’s missed a few slow-moving lizards, but if they scurry she’s on them like a hawk.
I thought my tiny beast would never see again, or she would struggle to make the shapes match with the sounds she heard and the motion she sensed. And yet… it was unexplainable.
Smidge’s bad eye is still a little blue, but it’s changed slightly for the better. Her good eye looks as if it was never damaged, all of this is minus an excess of eye goo in both eyes I lovingly wipe away multiple times a day.
I even catch her sleeping with her eyes open. My guess is she doesn’t want to miss anything.
