We had taken Buford (aka Biff) to the vet a couple of weeks ago because he had what looked to be a nasty eye infection in his left eye. So we got some eye-drops from the vet and they helped a little bit, but he never got any better and continued to look as though he lost a boxing match to Mike Tyson circa 1988. His third eyelid covered most of his eye and it was really swollen around the eye in general, and since it didn't heal, Melissa took Biff back into the vet today to see if there was some other antibiotics they could prescribe for him.

Well, it isn't good. They did blood work and it all came back to be really good, which means it's not an infection, but something different and worse than an infection. His eye is "bulging" now, and is completely dilated so it's a lot worse than it was, and it's gotten worse very quickly from what the Vet says. Meaning, there is something putting pressure on the back of his eye and pinching his optic nerve, like a tumor or something of the sort. In the below picture on the right, you can see his third eyelid (it comes from the inside corner of the eye, like a flap of skin) covering most of his eye.

Our options consisted of driving him to Sun Valley for a cat MRI so they could see the tumor, taking him to Salt Lake to a cat eye specialist so they could tell me that his eye is messed up, or having our vet take out his eye and scrape what he can of the tumor out. And we went with our Vet doing surgery tomorrow, which I'm not happy in the slightest to have to have done.

I gotta just say that this is complete $#@&^#*% for Buford. He's such a nice cat, he's like the anti-cat in that he's friendly and doesn't think the sun sets on his butt and is completely unpretentious. He's so patient and good, I feel so bad for him and it's not fair to have such a good, young cat (10 months old) have to lose half of his vision. It's not like me to get emotional about a cat, but I can't help but feel like a complete failure as an owner and steward for him, the only un-catly cat in the history of the universe.

Anyway, I trust our vet, he's a good guy. He says it will take some time for Biff to adjust to his new reality, but he should be just fine after a while. They will sew the eyelid shut after they remove the eye, and the sutures will have to stay in for a couple of weeks. The one and only small benefit for Biff... he'll be in the house and away from the unholy terrors that inhabit the home next to us. I swear, (more than I should) those kids next door are the first-borns to Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, those little bastages probably caused Buford condition by causing him to form a stress related tumor. Mama's don't let your babies grow up to be serial killers. Or cat abusers.

Anyway, I'll post some pics of his eye after the surgery and as he heals...