Quinnie was supposed to lose her right eye.
When the four-and-a-half month old kitten first came to Helen Woodward Animal Center, medical staff noticed she was unable to open her right eye. Gunk covered the eyelid and Quinnie seemed to be in a tremendous amount of pain. The Center’s veterinary assistants initially thought the kitten’s symptoms were caused by some sort of nasty eye infection. Oftentimes in these cases, the only treatment is enucleation. That’s an incredibly scientific and grim way of saying they’d have to remove her eye.
This sort of surgery is a big surgery. Quinnie’s life would be changed forever after. She’d have worse depth perception, which means she’d bump into objects and miss pieces of string more often. More seriously, she’d have a harder time jumping onto high surfaces which opens her up to injury. Of course, Helen Woodward Animal Center always wants to be 100% sure there’s no other treatment option before undergoing such an invasive procedure.
The Center’s Adoptions Medical Director, Dr. Alexis Siler, performed a thorough exam of Quinnie’s eye. She discovered the cause of the kitten’s irritation wasn’t from some sort of infection, but instead a condition called entropion. Entropion is a fancy way of saying Quinnie’s eyelid had somehow rolled inward. Specifically her lower eyelid for those of you keeping score at home. This leads to hair lodging itself between the messed up eyelid and the kitty’s cornea which causes all of the symptoms Quinnie was experiencing!
The good news is, the condition is treatable WITHOUT having to resort to enucleation. Instead, Dr. Siler performed a surgical procedure where she removed a small part of Quinnie’s bottom eyelid and then sewed it back together to form a proper eyelid.
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- Dr. Siler performs an exam on Quinnie’s eye before surgery.
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- Quinnie’s eyelid surgery.
The treatment worked almost immediately. Quinnie could keep her right eye open without pain. Best of all, she kept her vision! She did have a small amount of scarring around her eye, but that’s a small price to pay to keep both eyes.
Just over a week after her surgery, Quinnie became available for adoption. She and her brother, Tommy, sat on the adoption floor for a little over two weeks before they found their forever home. Two days after Valentine’s Day, a local family fell in love with the pair and added them to their family. Quinnie’s been living there happily ever after.
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- Quinnie and Tommy
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- Quinnie after her surgery
