unusual illnesses and medical conditions

bulging eyes—deformed tear ducts
When my two kittens were born, they had huge bulges over their eyes. I had no idea what the problem was, and two vets I took them to also had no idea. I were terrified that they kittens had pus behind their eyes, or deformed eyes, or no eyes at all. One vet actually recommended that I put the kittens to sleep.

When the kittens' eyes opened, however, I was relieved to see that they had beautiful, normal kitten eyes. The only problem was that the kittens' eyes ran constantly. The vet thought that they had some sort of eye infection, so I spent a large part of my kittens' young lives holding them down and putting medicine in their eyes. I even tried natural remedies. After doing this for many weeks, the vet told us that their condition was not responding to the medicine. She thought that they had a chronic viral infection, which was not curable.

I was worried that the infection would spread to the other cats, but didn't know what to do. At twelve weeks of age, however, I took the kittens to a new vet, who explained that the kittens' eyes were healthy, but that they had deformed tear ducts that prevented drainage.

She said that we could try an operation that would attempt to clear the tear ducts, but that the ducts would probably just get blocked again.

Two years have elapsed, and their eyes are the same—healthy but gooey. Now I just clean the kittens' faces off before I have company over.