Saving Buttercup’s Eye
I’ve had Buttercup since 2007 and she has always been the healthiest pony. On the morning of March 7, I got a text that said Buttercup’s eye was swollen and she was holding it closed. I’ve always known eyes are emergencies. I headed over to the barn and sent my vet a photo. She immediately suspected it was a corneal ulcer. A WHAT?! I thought to myself. An ulcer in her eyeball?!
I publish an equestrian/racing lifestyle magazine called Thoroughbred Today. In 2017, a famous one-eyed racehorse by the name of Patch appeared on the cover of the spring issue. The story of how he lost his eye has been ingrained in my memory since his trainer, Todd Pletcher, shared it with me, because of how quickly he lost his eye due to an aggressive infection.
My vet arrived within the hour and found a pinpoint ulcer in the center of Buttercup’s cornea. I was given a cream to apply twice a day. Two days later it had grown to the size of a dime. The vet came back out, gave me stronger meds and upped the frequency to 4x per day. The following day, the vet came back and placed an SPL -- a tube that delivers meds directly into the eye through the eyelid to make administration easier. Meds were upped to every 4 hours, but the ulcer kept getting bigger and deeper and by the sixth day the vet feared she would lose the eye if we couldn't get the ulcer under control. I had two options: remove her eye and move on OR admit her to a hospital for specialized treatment.
Buttercup has been by my side during my darkest hours and if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here today. To me, removing her eye without giving her a fighting chance, in my opinion, would have been a major betrayal. For everything she has done for me, I owed it to her to try and save her eye.
On March 13, she was admitted to the University of Florida’s Large Animal Hospital, where she spent 10 days.
With little to no improvement, I decided to bring her home on March 23 and under the supervision of a local vet with extensive experience treating corneal ulcers, took over her treatment myself. Buttercup arrived home 100 pounds thinner, with an eye the size of a tennis ball that radiated heat 6 inches away, and vet bills totaling $4,500. Her eye looked terrible and the new vet warned us to be “cautiously optimistic” as she was showing no signs of healing.
With the help of my parents, the three of us took turns to administer up to 7 medications every 2 hours, 24/7. The lengthiest treatment took 30-45 minutes because we had to wait 5 minutes between each medication, take her protective mask off each time to clean the eye’s discharge, and refresh the mask... so by the time we were done, we had a little over an hour before the start of the next treatment.
We lived on property in an RV and treated her every 2 hours for 6 weeks, and during that time, the vet came out twice a week (at least $300 per visit). After 6 weeks we backed down to treatments every 4 hours, then every 6 hours at 8 weeks, on May 15 every 12 hours with an outlook on removing the SPL and stopping medications on May 22.
This has undoubtedly been one of the most trying experiences of my life, I have done so much research on equine ophthalmology, talked to vets all around the world, used homeopathic remedies and even taught myself to do direct IV ozone treatments on a pony who turns into an angry dragon at the site of a needle. It was all worth it because Buttercup's is healing beautifully, so much so that the vets are floored with her recovery.
Many of you know the work I do in rehabbing senior horses. I did not stop caring for them during Buttercup’s treatment and prior to March spent hundreds of hours working hands-on with two of them. I never thought Buttercup would make the work I do with the seniors seem so easy.
As of May 21, Buttercup’s medical bills total $9,500. With work down due to Covid-19, I am struggling to find work to pay my monthly minimums for her treatment. I am in desperate need of help and would be so grateful for any donations.