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Ojo's Story
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Our morning had started early, like all other mornings of the VIDAS trip.
We arrived at the school in Chemuyil, hopeful there would be someone
there to unlock the buildings for us. There was some confusion about our
reservation of the classroom and as Cristina negotiated with the officials
of the pueblo, the rest of us began to unload the van and the trailer. I
noticed a small kitten watching us and began to walk towards him. As I
got closer, I noticed that his left eye was very enlarged. The kitten was
initially wary of me and started to move away. I knew that his eye must be
incredibly painful and I was determined to catch him so that our
veterinarians could help him.
As I sat still and called to him he stopped, turned and walked toward me.
He allowed me to pick him up and immediately began to purr. His eye
was incredibly enlarged and it was evident that he was blind in that eye.
Our veterinarians determined that the eye could not be saved and needed
to be removed in order to relieve his pain and suffering. As I stood there
with the kitten in my arms, an elderly man approached, asking for his
kitten. Robyn explained that the kitten needed surgery to remove the eye
and that we could neuter the kitten at the same time. The man refused
surgery and walked away, leaving the kitten in my arms and the VIDAS
crew with a dilemma: surgery was in the kitten’s best interest but we
couldn’t perform surgery without the owner’s permission.
With help from a local police officer, Dr. Erica Periman went to kitten’s
home and the woman who lived there gave us permission to remove the
painful eye and neuter him. Dilemma solved! Dr. Lisa McCarthy and Dr.
Alan Applebury worked together to remove the damaged eye. “Ojo”
recovered in our clinic that afternoon and we took him to his home that
evening along with some pain medication for the owners to administer.
The children living there were very glad to see their kitten and didn’t seem
bothered by the fact that he only had one eye. We stopped by the home
the next day to check on our patient and he was doing great…purring like
he had been since the moment I met him. It was a great feeling to know
that we had helped him and that he could live the rest of his life pain free!
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