Enucleation: The story of when one eye is the right way to go

In this episode, Robyn Stewart, the county extension coordinator for the Northwest District for the University of Georgia Extension Service, shares the story of Web and his journey through losing his eye.  We talk about how Web adapted, and how Robyn made the tough decision to remove his eye.

Transcript

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Kris Hiney: Welcome to extension horses, tack box, talk series horse stories with a purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University. And today we're going to be talking about the adventures of one of our Extension Horses members with some horse eye issues.

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Kris Hiney: and I know we've talked to other members in the past about eye issues with their horses, so, joining the ranks of owners with trouble. Welcome back, Robyn Stewart with the University of Georgia. So welcome back, Robin.

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Kris Hiney: Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Hiney. I'm happy to be here.

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Kris Hiney: Are you.

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Robyn Stewart: In hindsight. Yes, because we're a few months out at this point. But it was definitely something I did not expect to start my year with.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, it's a lot easier just to talk about how to manage pastures or things like that rather than oh, I had a problem. So let's give us a little background on our horse in question. Who is he? How old is he? What were you doing with him? All of that. So we get to know him.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah. So Website RW, who goes by web? He is a purebred Arabian gelding. He's 21 turned 21 in April, actually. And I have had him for the last 10 years or so, and we've done pretty much everything. We did. Quite a bit of ranch horse work. We do a lot of hunter equitation things. Before I moved to Georgia we showed quite a bit, and then when I moved here into

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Robyn Stewart: 2019, we kind of semi-retired. He was 17 at the time, so we semi-retired and just decided that we were going to kind of trail, ride and hang out and maybe do some fun things here and there, so he is mostly retired. At this point. We do some fun shows and things like that, but for the most part, we just kind of ride for fun and enjoy it.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, so age and job gets in the way I'm guessing, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So we're here to talk about eye issues. So we're gonna just do our timeline and walk us through what happened with Web.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah. So New Year's Day.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, no, really New Year's Day.

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Robyn Stewart: New Year's Day, and I was about to head out of town for family vacation for like 3 or 4 days, and I went out to check on him because he is boarded, so he is in a pasture boarded situation where they feed every day for me, so if I don't make it out there. I know that he's cared for. I go out, and he just wasn't right.

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Robyn Stewart: And that's something about horses that I think some people, if you've owned a horse a long time, you kind of get a feel for when they're right and when they're not.

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Robyn Stewart: because he just wasn't quite right. And it wasn't. He didn't have any drainage. He didn't have any swelling. There was nothing really wrong, but the eye just looked a little funny to me, and so I called my vet and said, You know, I don't really think it's an issue. But what would you recommend? And he had

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Robyn Stewart: minor eye ulcer issues in the past. So this was not something completely new to me, and we had some meds on hand. So we went ahead and started him on twice a day. Meds

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Robyn Stewart: just to combat whatever might have been going on, and from Wednesday to Friday of that week, while I was gone the barn owner was like, it looks great. There's no problems like, I don't even think there's an issue. So I'm thinking, on my vacation perfect. He's good, we're good. There's no problems.

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Robyn Stewart: and when I got out there Sunday night, when I 1st got home to check on him, it had blown up. It went from fine to very much. Not fine massive drainage down the face, opaque like. Just clearly not right? So I put in an emergency call to our vet, and unfortunately did not get a call back.

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Robyn Stewart: and we live in an area where we have some pretty good vets thankfully, but for whatever reason we just slipped it, our cell service isn't great. I don't know if it just didn't go through. I don't know what happened, but I wound up that next morning, actually going ahead and loading him and hauling him into her.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, so it was pretty severe then.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, because I was so concerned. And that was the only way she could see us that day. Because her schedule was so full, so I hauled her in on the 6th confirmed that he did have an ulcer, and then we

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Robyn Stewart: went ahead and modified his meds just a little bit, and we did 3 times a day meds with a recheck later that week by Saturday, Friday, Saturday, it had not gotten any better, and so I called her. And I was like, Yeah, like, I think this is not doing it. We need to change our plan. And she recommended, we go to the University of Georgia Veterinary School.

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Robyn Stewart: So we went there the next week, and they actually recommended that we go up to 5 time a day Meds, and they confirmed. It was a fungal ulcer, and we had an SPL line put in that 1st week of treatment just to make it easier on him, instead of trying to pry his eye open every single time, and that wound up being a great decision, my vet was a little bit hesitant that early in it. But for his comfort I just thought he would do better with the line.

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Kris Hiney: So I'll just stop just a set for everybody that hasn't seen this before. A subpalpebral line is essentially, they put in like a little catheter line that they tie into their mane, that you can inject at the mane site, and it drips into their eyes rather than bringing the dropper towards their eye, and I was like, no, no, this is a much simpler way to do it.

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Robyn Stewart: Yes, and it's not without its risk. This was January, so we did have, you know. Is it going to freeze? Is the line going to kink. Are you going to have blockages? Right? So all kinds of concerns with that technology? But for us we thought it was the best option given that since it was not responding after 5 days of treatment, really, probably 8 days of treatment. At this point, we were like, okay, we're probably going to have to do a lot more intensive stuff here. So we went to UGA. They confirmed it was Fungal. They put us on some different meds

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Robyn Stewart: at this point. They wanted him treated like every 2Â h, and that's beyond the scope of what I or my barn owner could manage, and I am actually very fortunate that we have a rehabilitation center here in my county called Helios Equine rehab. And so I called them and said, Can you guys take this horse on and manage his care, and they said, yes, so I took him from the Vet. School straight to the Rehab farm, got him settled in there, and then we started 5 time a day meds.

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Robyn Stewart: And again I think he was on.

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Robyn Stewart: He was on all kinds of things serums and antifungals and topical like cream antifungals and everything, all of the things, and we rechecked him about 7 days after that, to see if there was any improvement with our normal veterinarian with our county veterinarian, and she did not really see much change, and she wanted him to go back to UGA, and we did, and they said, it's time to pull the eyeball.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, boy!

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Robyn Stewart: We brought him back to the Rehab farm, and they did go ahead and pull that eye out. Actually, on January 31.st So about a month

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Robyn Stewart: time. We did all of this, but she did it on farm and pulled the eye, and it was immediate relief for him. So it was a good decision for us. It was something that has its own degree of sadness to it. Right? I don't think any horse owner wants to remove an eye, but he was much more comfortable immediately after, and actually the aftercare for him. He stayed overnight at the rehab facility, and then the next day we took him home and turned him out.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, wow!

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Robyn Stewart: so that was a good option, but it took a long time. So about a month. During that time he also colicked twice.

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Robyn Stewart: This horse has never colicked in the 10 years I've had him.

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Robyn Stewart: all of the changes of being out 24, 7 to being stalled to being on hay to having atropine all of these things going on medically, and he had a pretty hard time with that. So that's kind of how it all happened, and how he lost his eye.

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Kris Hiney: Wow! So so talk about now.

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Kris Hiney: what his transition was like, I guess, being only having one eye. Do you have to do things different. Different care like, what is your current life with Web like.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah. So once we got the eye out, he had sutures for about 7 to 10 days, and my veterinarian told me, if you are comfortable removing them you're welcome to. If you want me to come, take him out, I can. So I actually removed his sutures myself definitely. A little bit of an experience. He's very patient. He's 21. I've had him a long time, and he was very, very good for it. But I would say, you know, when we 1st brought him home and turned him out.

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Robyn Stewart: I'm terrible. I just throw him out in the field, I said. Good luck! Have fun! Has been living there a long time, so he knows where all the fence lines are. He is out there with his friends.

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Robyn Stewart: and they all started doing the Reunion dance of being happy horses, and they all started galloping around this field, and he is full tilt at this fence, and I'm sitting there going. Please stop, please stop! And he did so. They adapted really. Well, I turned him right out.

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Robyn Stewart: He did wear a fly mask while he had sutures in just to help keep it clear, and I'll come back to the fly mask. But once the sutures were out, the eyes are actually interesting because the socket fills with fluid, and so they actually maintain a round socket for about a week, and then that fluid dissipates after the eye is removed. So then they have more of the concave. What you think about when you think of an eye removal, and that was something my veterinarian warned me about. So I was worried about that.

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Robyn Stewart: but we did that. And then, honestly, we got right back to working in riding, and not that we ride super often, usually, maybe 3 or 4 times a week if that

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Robyn Stewart: but I really

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Robyn Stewart: didn't handle him much different. And this is where you'll get some different opinions. My barn owners are of the opinion that he is much more spooky, much more looky on his left side. That's the eye he lost.

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Robyn Stewart: They're a lot more careful with how they handle him. I would call it they baby him a little bit more than I do. I very much of the opinion he's 21. I've had him 10 years? The answer is still the answer, regardless right? And so we've been doing it a long time, and I really treat him very much the same. Some of the things I've noticed, he

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Robyn Stewart: it's interesting, because when they do find something that they're interested in looking at, if they're one-eyed, they have a lot more head and neck motion to find it, so you can tell when he's trying to look at something, because he'll move his entire head around and use his right eye to find that field of view to look at what he wants to use. So you get a little bit more head movement which you have to be a little bit careful of, because he can't see what's on his left side.

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Robyn Stewart: and he will bop his face into a fence, into you, into the barn aisle, whatever it is, because he can't see it and sometimes

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Robyn Stewart: distracted. It just doesn't consider that. So he does have moments where he startles himself because he bumps into something. But again he's grown enough that he handles that. Well, I think other horses may have a harder time with that, because if they, you know, bump something and really spook themselves, I could see it being something that caused a bigger reaction. But for him it's usually very much a wow, I didn't think that was there, and that was about all he would do.

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Robyn Stewart: but we got right back to riding. I still do everything on the left I lead on the left. I'm out on the left. I do everything kind of normally. My attitude is that he's done this. His entire life on the left side, and I wasn't going to create more new things for him to learn by trying to do things off of his right.

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Robyn Stewart: That is something that we considered was to lead and do everything on the opposite side. But I've kept it very much the same, and he's adapted really. Well, one of the only big things that I have noticed is that his eye socket gets itchy.

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Robyn Stewart: and that's something I didn't think about.

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Robyn Stewart: He gets very itchy in it, and my horse is pretty stoic. He doesn't love the scratches. He's not one that you'll find a sweet spot very often on, but he loves having that eye socket cleaned out and scratched. And I also noticed that as we've gotten fly season kicking up here, he tends to get bug bites in it.

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Kris Hiney: Really.

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Robyn Stewart: We had some discussion of. Do I keep a fly mask on him or not? Right, and part of our thought with my veterinarian being. How do we preserve the other eye? Right? Because that's now the most valuable eye, because it's the only one he has.

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Robyn Stewart: And so we talked about whether you fly mask or not, kind of what that looks like. And at this point I think he is more comfortable in one, because the bugs stay out of that eye socket and kind of leave it alone. So he does wear a fly mask most of the time, unless it is raining out. If it's raining. I try to pull it off, but for the most part he's in a fly mask. We check it every day. Make sure it's in good shape. But that's been the biggest change, is itchy, and wearing a fly mask, and just being mindful of the fact that he cannot see on the left.

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Kris Hiney: So, and I mean it's they suture the skin so like it's hair covered. But is it like thinner skin or less hair like. I'm just curious about why you think that the flies are attracted to the eye socket.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, it's not really. It's as if they blink, and then they just suture the eyelids together. So it's basically the eyelid skin. I don't know why bugs seem to like it, but I noticed a couple of weeks ago I went out to clean it, and as I cleaned it and kind of itched it for him. He had these like scabs come off, and he had these bug bites in it, and so it was very odd. But the other thing is, he also still has eyelashes

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Robyn Stewart: think about. But now he's got eyelashes that grow all kinds of wonky directions in there. So I've been contemplating whether I should go like trim them so they're not like poking him in the skin, or if I just leave it alone. I don't know the answer to that, but it's something that I've noticed. That's kind of on my mind.

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Kris Hiney: Do they remove like the tear ducts? like? Does he have the ability to have tears at this point in time.

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Robyn Stewart: I think probably

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Kris Hiney: Okay.

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Robyn Stewart: It's 1 of those. So I actually stayed and watched the surgery because I'm a horse person and a science person. But I thought it was kind of interesting that it is not as refined of a surgery as maybe I expected.

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Robyn Stewart: which sounds terrible, but there's no refined way of getting the eye out of the eye socket.

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Robyn Stewart: It's kind of a lot of slicing and dicing in there and then. They just suture up the eyelid. So I'm assuming he still has a tear duct, and it may be that he's got some. I don't see any drainage like I don't see any specific drainage coming out ever. But it could be, maybe, that he's got some production in there, and the challenge being that since it's a socket he can't itch it right like he cannot get into that socket

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Robyn Stewart: in any way, shape or form, to actually kind of soothe it. If he does get something in there.

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Kris Hiney: Interesting so, but other than that, his life is pretty normal.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, we went to a horse show like 6 weeks after we got the eye out, and again, like very similar. And he's an Arabian, which again, maybe I'll say that, like he's always a little bit

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Robyn Stewart: more aware of his surroundings is maybe how I'll phrase it. He's always a little bit more concerned about what's going on. He's not the most quiet calm.

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Robyn Stewart: doesn't care about anything kind of horse, right? So he's always been a little aware. And I really haven't felt like that has changed at all. We did go to a Horse Show, and he, you know, rode around. He trucked a friend of mine around and kind of the baby classes, and did great for him, and then trucked me around, and we won a bunch of stuff that day. So it went great, and people were really impressed with it. So I think, riding wise.

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Robyn Stewart: I think he's a little bit stiffer to that direction now, particularly in his head and neck like he's a little bit less soft than maybe what I'm used to, but I think most of that is again like his vision is very different. So I think that that's just kind of part of part of that adaption that he's going through.

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Kris Hiney: Right? Right? So have you like you just ask a little less of him, or like, is that so? You say he's stiffer one way. So do you kind of have like, okay, I get it, Buddy. Like, don't worry about it. Or are you like trying to work through that? And.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, we work through it. For the most part, it's kind of funny, because he's always been a little bit harder to the right. Actually like he's always kind of a harder falling in on his right shoulder like he kind of. He's a little harder, right? And now it almost feels like he's even again, which sounds very odd, but I feel like now. His left is a little bit handicapped. So now we're just more straight, no matter what we do. So I just kind of work through it. And I have actually, we've trail ridden him. I actually did jump him.

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Robyn Stewart: I wanted to know if he could jump. Not that we jump a lot anymore. But he handled that just fine goes over poles just fine. So it's really been a lot less of a dramatic change than what I expected. I expected to have more limitations with him, and I think part of it is his age.

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Robyn Stewart: Think part of it is like how I handle it, like I treat him very much the way I used to, you know I don't.

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Robyn Stewart: I don't really use his eye as an excuse for him to to be any different than what he should be. But yes, writing wise. It's a little bit more support to the left. It's asking maybe a little bit more, I think maybe at his age, I think maybe I ask a less

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Robyn Stewart: specifically, unless you know, it's very much kind of. I'm used to him going in this manner, and now I have to be a little more intentional with it than what I maybe have done in the past.

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Kris Hiney: So for owners that that may be facing this kind of decision. No hesitation. Just take it out. The horse will be fine.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, well, and so it's interesting, because my 1st vet visit with my local vet, I told her, removing his eye was a viable option, and I think she thought I was crazy.

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Robyn Stewart: But my opinion he's a 21 year old recreation trail horse like he's I love him dearly. But one of the things that we can talk about Chris is about some of the financials of it is not.

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Kris Hiney: I was going to ask.

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Robyn Stewart: To deal with this kind of issue, and I think we have to be very realistic about what

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Robyn Stewart: is reasonable for us and specifically with him. Yes, I would say absolutely, if you have a horse that has an eye issue, do work with your veterinarian. A dear friend of mine had a horse, we think, run into a tree branch. We don't know what she did, but it was the most gnarly trauma eye situation I've ever seen, and that horse made a 100%. Recovery still has full vision, still rides, does all the things

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Robyn Stewart: wild to me. I absolutely felt that horse would lose its eye, and then you look at mine where it's like he just started, not quite right, and then goes from not quite right to needing the eye removed. So I think it's 1 of those that

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Robyn Stewart: eyes are always emergencies. So always work with your veterinarian. If you have an eye issue and then work with them to figure out the best option, and if enucleation is what they call it, that's the removal. That's an absolutely valid option. And I know a lot of horses that do really well with one eye, so I wouldn't hesitate to make the decision again. I would probably have made it earlier had I known how it was going to play out.

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Robyn Stewart: I would probably have removed it before I went to Uga the 1st time, but I've also owned this 1st 10 years I have a lot of emotions involved.

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Robyn Stewart: The thought of having him lose an eye was very sad to me. I didn't like that. It's not something I wanted for him, and you don't expect it right. I didn't expect that I'd have a 1-eyed horse.

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Robyn Stewart: but at the same time, you know, that's how it goes sometimes. So I tried everything we could to get his eye back to a healthy state, and we couldn't do it, and we initiated, but so I would say, yes, do it. If that's an earlier choice for you. If you've got financial limitations or other limitations, that kind of drive, that decision that's absolutely okay. And many horses do just fine.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, so you spent 30 days essentially dealing with this eye. So if you're willing.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Was the total bill.

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Robyn Stewart: Absolutely. So. I'm gonna go off of my brain, my memory on this, because I don't have it in front of me. But I believe all in. I was roughly 5 to 6 grand, which actually, is not that bad. I got very, very lucky. Again. Mine did go to a rehab facility for about 2 to 3 weeks. That is something that

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Robyn Stewart: I was very fortunate because they worked with me to lower their normal rate.

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Robyn Stewart: and that was for a couple of different reasons that I prefer not to disclose. But I was very fortunate that they worked with me to help make that work for us, and their full rate typically would have put my bill closer to 8 to 10 grand.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, that's what I was. Gonna guess that it would have been closer to to 10. So.

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Robyn Stewart: I got very, very fortunate, and I actually went in the 1st week or 2. I said, like I was like, I'm spending 3 grand on this, because I'm a horse person. I was like you got to set a budget

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Robyn Stewart: right.

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Robyn Stewart: my budget. I did not, because I kept thinking about my poor horse, and how he deserved for us to try all the things, and we did right. So we exhausted every potential option we could have done. I know wholeheartedly like this, was the decision based on everything that we knew, so I don't have any like. Oh, I wish I would have known which is, but it definitely.

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Robyn Stewart: You know, money wise was something to think about. I will say the enucleation itself was a lot less expensive than I expected. It is done, as at least my veterinarian did it as a standing anesthesia. So we actually just put him in stocks and sedated him very heavily, and I think my enucleation was about $600, so the surgeon, to remove the eye was a lot cheaper.

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Robyn Stewart: The rehabilitation stay was pricey, and then the combination of vet visits, because, as I mentioned, I didn't have just the normal vet. I think we had

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Robyn Stewart: 4 or 5 visits with my normal veterinarian, and then we had the 2 trips to UGA, and then we also had the colic  calls which were after hours. So the veterinarian expenses were high.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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Robyn Stewart: The uga expenses were less than I thought. I think. All in between the 2 trips to Uga it was 7 or $800.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, that's not bad. Yeah.

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Robyn Stewart: So just thinking through like the rehab was really what was the biggest expense for me. But I could not manage 5 times a day. Eye meds.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, that's not.

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Robyn Stewart: So. But yeah, roughly, roughly. 5 grand or so, 5 to 6. Grand.

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Robyn Stewart: probably should have been closer to 10. I got very lucky, but that is realistic. And I think it's realistic for owners to say, you know, if you can't afford that, that's okay, you know, if you have an eye issue if you treat it for a week or 2, and it's not getting better. And you have the option to enucleate. That's a perfectly valid option.

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Kris Hiney: Right? Yeah. And I think, for I mean, I can't imagine in your position like, because you're like, okay, we'll just try this. And

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Kris Hiney: because it doesn't seem like a drastic step. You're not like that big like you're going in for surgery right? You're like, oh, it's eye meds. We just have to do it more often like, so I think it would be hard to be like. No, let's just skip it and take the eye out. So I think it's a lot harder in that kind of situation than just the big, easy decisions.

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Robyn Stewart: Sure, absolutely.

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Kris Hiney: Not that they're ever easy, but I think those surgery is such more like they do it or they don't. Whereas this is okay. Let's try these meds. Try these meds. Try these. So.

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Robyn Stewart: And I pondered very hard about taking into UGA at all.

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Robyn Stewart: I very much I really kind of didn't want to.

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Robyn Stewart: But again my little. My little emotional side of me got me, and I was like, Okay, like he deserves the best care I can afford to give him, and like

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Robyn Stewart: I also very firmly believe, like this is part of why, financially, you save for an emergency fund, and you have funds that if you have something go sideways. You can do what you need to do, and I'm fortunate that I could afford to take him to UGA. But I didn't really want to go. My dad very much pressured me. He was like that horse has done everything and gone everywhere, and he deserves for you to do everything you can to save his eye.

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Robyn Stewart: And so it was definitely more of an emotional decision, I would say, and that was really, I think, for us. That was probably the delineator of like the decision would have been if we had decided not to go to UGA.

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Robyn Stewart: We probably would have made the enucleation decision 3 weeks earlier.

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Robyn Stewart: But again, they've got better technologies. They're able to do some things, and that's why we took him

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Robyn Stewart: so didn't change the outcome. But again, I feel better know when we did everything we could do. But I would also say, like, if that is kind of where people are at that bridge in treatment, because, as you said, like, oh, it's just more meds more often like, that's a hard thing to make a decision in. But if it's a decision of like locally treat versus a specialist. Maybe that's kind of the breaking point of where you decide whether you're going to try and push through to the end, or where you're going to make a call.

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Kris Hiney: Okay.

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Kris Hiney: well, I I appreciate this, you know, so sorry that Web had to go through it. But it sounds like he's doing just fine now. Got a few little extra itchy spots and a little bit more care, but it's doing fine. No, no issues really.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. It's been really wild. I expected more issues. I expected it to be much more dramatic. And it really has not been. As I said, it's

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Robyn Stewart: I will say one thing that is kind of funny, but also relevant, is when I take him like in a barn or a stall, or even the trailer, if you turn him around in tight spaces. Now, you've got to be really careful, because he will bop his face into walls because he doesn't. His left side's.

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Kris Hiney: Oh, sure. Yeah.

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Robyn Stewart: That's just something I never. That's maybe another difference I didn't really think about. And now I have to be a little cautious. He has gotten better since he's been without one eye, and I would say, maybe that's 1 of the things to mention is that

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Robyn Stewart: I think part of why he adjusted so fast and so well is that for him he could not see out of the eye.

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Robyn Stewart: So while we were treating this issue like he was mostly blind, anyway, because that eye was so damaged and so sick. So I don't know how much vision he really had, anyway. So I kind of think that if he couldn't see then maybe he had a couple of weeks where he was kind of figuring out the one eye, and when we pulled it. There was immediate relief like you could tell he was.

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Robyn Stewart: His pain was gone. Eyes are very painful things you could tell immediately he was more comfortable and happy. So that's maybe another piece of it is just being mindful. But I think that adaption depends a little bit. He spent so long with it so sick that I don't think he could see, so I think he maybe had like a pre-adaption before we actually.

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Kris Hiney: Sure. Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: well, I really appreciate your story. And I think again, it reiterates that with horses especially, never take eye issues lightly, like they need to be looked at because horse eyes of all from my experience horse eyes are so much worse than other species, so they really need

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Kris Hiney: immediate care.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah. And our veterinarian at UGA said that they're the and I guess I didn't. Maybe I knew this. Maybe I didn't. But she said. They're the largest eye of any species, I think, comparatively to their size.

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Robyn Stewart: So I think that's always really interesting to keep in mind. But there's lots of options, for when you have an eye issue, but they're always emergent. Get them seen if you can. As I said, we've had 2 or 3 other like minor ulcers that we treated didn't have any issues with. But this was the one that kind of became the doozy. So.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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Robyn Stewart: Unfortunately, the fungal ones are the hardest, they told us, because we don't have good antifungal drugs to treat them so. That was kind of our downfall was that it was a fungal one. We just could not get ahead of it, and then, by the time we removed it he had thinned out so much through the retina and the cornea that he was close to rupture. And actually, when they did the enucleation, it did rupture when they were removing it. So wow!

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Robyn Stewart: Even if we had gotten the infection cleared up, I don't know that he would have had good vision. I don't know how that eye would have turned out, even if we had saved it.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, okay.

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Kris Hiney: well, I definitely appreciate your time today sharing your story with us. And I think it's good for horse owners to hear kind of how it works and outcome, and not be afraid of making those calls right? Because it will be okay on the on the other side. So.

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Robyn Stewart: And it's an emotional decision. And I think it's hard like being in academia in the horse world like, I know, right? We talk about enucleation and eye problems and the financial. We talk about all the things, and we teach all these things. But being in the moment with my horse losing his eye. It's a lot more emotional than what I expected it to be.

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Kris Hiney: Right, right.

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Robyn Stewart: Just being mindful that that's okay. It's okay to feel emotional about it. It's okay to be upset about it. But at the end of the day. It's also about

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Robyn Stewart: care and welfare. And sometimes we have to make the hard decisions, even when they're the right ones.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us, Robin. And I don't know that we have any extra information to put in the show notes. But certainly there's several other podcasts with fellow members. Carissa Wickens has also had issues with them as well. So you can go back and listen to some of the other ones for some alternative outcomes, but always not cheap. So

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Kris Hiney: okay, then, well, appreciate your time. And this has been another episode of our tech box talk core stories with a purpose.