The eyes have it

At my last visit in July, Dr. Johnson said to watch my left eye. Well, it suddenly swelled up last week, so this morning my Tortoise Mom and Dad took me to Eye Care for Animals where I got a thorough exam by Dr. Church.



I got the full treatment, including Tonometry, just like people get from their opthomologists. Who knew?



Dr. Church found that my right eye has problems too: red spots on the iris (should be green) caused by bleeding and minor inflammation.



She diagnosed the left eye, the worst one, with a small cataract (but not the usual variety) that releases protein to cause inflammation. As a result that eye has "discoria" which means an abnormally shaped pupil. Plus I can't see out of it.

 

She said the underlying cause is systemic or metabolic health problems, or even anemia (why I'm eating Mazuri Tortoise Diet now).So she'll talk to Dr. Johnson about that, and she prescribed anti-inflammatory eye drops.



Eye drops? Yikes! Having eye drops twice a day means I have to stay in the winter burrow and can't hunker down in the old burrow. You know how I feel about that. But I also know how lucky I am to have such good care from my Tortoise Mom and Dad, and from Dr. Johnson and Dr. Church. I am one lucky tortoise!

Time flies when you're sleeping.... (yawn) by Grandma

It looks like I aced today's weigh-in that my tortoise mom and dad put me through every two weeks. Usually I have to be SOAKED too. Oh the humanity!!! But they started weighing me before and after soaking and noticed that it's just not effective, and might even be stressing me into losing more weight. For instance, two weeks ago, I weighed at 3161 grams fresh from the burrow, with my eyes still shut tight. Then after a 20-minute soak, I weighed 3168 -- only 7 grams! I could be hiding that in my lady turtleneck or in my, ahem, bikini area. Anyway, it's likely no actual water is hitting my bladder because my cloaka is shut just as tight as my eyelids.

So my tortoise mom and dad reviewed my weight history and decided that this soaking business isn't helping and might even be stressing me by disturbing me so much. When I soaked back in November, I couldn't hold my head out of the water as I was so sleepy so they vowed to use less water next time, and also to weigh me before soaking to see how much water I was actually taking in. Anyway I weighed 3180 grams after soaking on November 18. But then I weighed 3161 grams when they checked me two weeks later. So maybe soaking makes me LOSE water instead of taking it in? Whatever it is, I'm just so glad I got to skip soaking today.

So now I'm back in my burrow, tucked way in the back where I've been digging in. The burrow is staying a steady 51-55 degrees even though the outside temperature dropped to 31 degrees a few times. And I'm staying dry despite getting 1.5 inches of rain this week, but the burrow is well insulated with dirt and the opening is sealed with wood and foam to keep cold air and water from getting in.

All in all, it's good to be a tortoise right now. In this burrow, I'm definitely more snug than a bug in a rug.