Author: Bettina Hansen
of http://chin.dk
A baby born with a missing eye?
This is the story about Rum Tum Tugger.
I found him at the local pet store where he was placed in a small cage besides a noisy parrot. He had been biting his fur from both hips and he was missing an eye - he looked awful and it was quite clear that he would probably have to stay there for a very long time before someone would buy him. So I decided to take him home - the pet store owner seemed happy enough just to get rid of him...
According to the pet store owner the woman who had brought him in had told him that the baby was born without the eye. Having read that chinchilla babies are sometimes born with closed eyes and are unable to open them if they don't get help I doubted that - but it was my word against hers...
A few days later I took Rum Tum Tugger to the vet - just to have him checked. I was convinced that the vet would just look at him and send us home - because the eye lid was (at least I thought so) grown together and the eye completely closed...
But it turned out that Rum Tum Tugger's eye was badly infected - the eyelids were held together by pus. Once she had the eye opened the entire hollow was filled with pus (absolutely not a very nice sight). The eye was gone (as expected) but according to the vet he is almost for sure born with both eyes but has been unable to open one of them.
If such babies get help within the first few days of their lives the eye can be saved but otherwise the eye will shrink, be damaged and finally completely disappear. All the pus has been caused by the irritation that the vanishing eye has caused...
Then we started a hard fight against the infection. The eye was cleaned with salt water and smeared with cream twice a day for about three weeks. After two weeks we also decided to give him antibiotics (which he hated) as the battle against the infection was very hard to win.
At some point I really started to doubt whether I was doing the right thing. Maybe he was in pain and would never get well? But the vet told me that he was not in any pain any more - he felt pain while the eye was vanishing but now that it was gone he felt no pain. So we continued and finally we got the infection under control :)
I still have to clean the eye every day with salt water - because every now and then a new infection will start and then the eye must be smeared with the cream twice a day for at least five days. We hope that the eye will close completely with time so that he won't keep getting infections for the rest of his life. If it doesn't close by itself we may consider an operation where part of the eyelids are removed and the rest is sewn together - but we really hope that this won’t be necessary...
This poor little guy has had a very rough start in life and I'm very disappointed and even angry with the breeder where he was born. If she had opened his eye in the first few days after he was born his eye could probably have been rescued and he would surely have been spared for a lot of pain and nasty treatment. Of course I know that she probably didn't do this because she is evil - she probably didn't know any better and was convinced that he didn't have an eye.
This is why I write this - as a warning and information to all of you. Maybe one day you will have a newborn baby with one or two closed eyes. Then you should know that there is an eye in there and the eyelids must be opened - otherwise the eye will die... It might help to bath the eye in salt water but if you are still unable to open the eye then take the baby to a vet who can help you.
If you want to follow Rum Tum Tugger and see how he is doing you can visit his homepage at http://fluffy.chin.dk/eng/rtt.html
|
|
