The Clock is Ticking: My Beloved Dog, Diabetes, and the Fight Against Cataracts
There is a particular cruelty to time, an inexorable march that cares little for sentiment, love, or the desperate will of a man who has dedicated his life to science and healing. My dog—my beloved, 12.5-pound, black, magnificent Maltipoo—has been diagnosed with diabetes. And though the word itself hits like a freight train, though I momentarily felt the floor drop beneath me, I did what any man of reason does: I sought the best care, the best minds, the best science. Within days, thanks to a skilled and compassionate veterinarian wielding the divine elixir of insulin, she was stabilized. Crisis averted—or so I thought.
Because then came the second punch, the one I didn’t see coming: cataracts.
It is not a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’ Within a year, nearly all diabetic dogs develop cataracts. It is a truth so coldly absolute that even my years in medicine, my understanding of probability, and my respect for nature’s merciless order could not soften the blow. And I am no stranger to inevitability—I’ve seen it in the human face more times than I care to count. But this is different. This is my companion. This is family.
She does not care that I am a dermatologist. She does not care what I look like, what car I drive, or how the world measures success. She loves me, my wife, and my family with the kind of unconditional devotion that only a dog can give—pure, unquestioning, and infinite. She is there when I wake up in the morning, when I return home, when the world is loud and chaotic, and when the silence is deafening. She does not ask for much—just love, just presence. And what breaks me, what keeps me awake at night, is knowing that one day, if nothing changes, she may not be able to see my face when I hold her, when I tell her she is the best girl, when I throw her favorite ball and watch her sprint after it with the kind of unfiltered joy that makes life worth living.
Modern veterinary medicine offers cataract surgery with remarkable success. I should be comforted by this. But surgery means risk. Surgery means anesthesia. Surgery means placing my girl under and praying she wakes up unchanged, unshaken, still the boundless source of joy that greets me with the same unfiltered enthusiasm whether I’ve been gone five minutes or five hours.
And yet—there is a cure. A real, tangible, scientifically sound cure. Kinostat, an eye drop that has been heralded by veterinary ophthalmologists across the globe, a miraculous little bottle that can halt the process before it begins. Kinostat works by inhibiting aldose reductase, an enzyme that converts excess glucose into sorbitol in the lens of the eye. In diabetic dogs, sorbitol accumulates, causing the lens to swell and develop cataracts. By blocking this process, Kinostat prevents the formation of cataracts at the molecular level, effectively stopping the disease before it starts.
https://therapeuticvision.com/pipeline-products/
It is not pseudoscience. It is not the false hope of internet charlatans. It is real medicine. The only problem? It is not FDA-approved. Bureaucracy, red tape, the glacial pace of regulatory approval—all while the clock is ticking.
I am a doctor. I understand the necessity of caution, of thorough review, of ensuring that what we prescribe does no harm. But when something has already been deemed safe, when specialists in the field are singing its praises, when the alternative is an unnecessary surgery fraught with risks—what exactly are we waiting for? Is the purpose of medicine not to heal? Is the purpose of science not to propel forward?
I have spent my life in pursuit of answers. I have watched miracles unfold in operating rooms, seen lives changed by the sheer force of human ingenuity. And yet, here I stand, a man with resources, with knowledge, with a will that does not bend easily—and I am forced to wait. To hope that time moves a little slower for her than it does for the others. To consider what it means that a cure exists but is being withheld, not by nature, not by fate, but by a system that fears moving too fast more than it fears standing still.
So yes, I will prepare for the worst. I will consult the best surgeons. I will be ready. But I will also fight. Because she is more than just a pet. She is joy incarnate, an unspoken presence that makes my world whole. She is my shadow, my solace, my reminder that love needs no conditions, no explanations. And if there is even the slimmest chance that she can be spared the surgeon’s knife, I will find a way. Because the clock is ticking—but so am I.
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| DR GARY JAYNE ROTHFELD |
