The Repurposed Horse

Turnout has gone better than I could have imagined. Spring has been absolutely loving it, cavorting around with her friends and somehow looking pretty damn sound. She's doing well enough that I texted my vet this morning to cancel our Wednesday appointment. If there's still a chance for Spring to have a life and be a happy horse, I'll continue to fight for it. She's going to be stuck inside most of this week while I'm out of town for the holidays, but once I'm back the plan is to continue to wean her onto full time turnout as the wound on her leg continues to grow ever smaller. I'm hoping that once she can be outside without a bandage the leg will really start looking better - that skin needs fresh air ASAP.  I know that our saga isn't over, and that there will likely be more twists and turns ahead. But tonight I'm feeling hopeful again, and my horse is happy again, and we have time.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out to offer words of support. It's hard for me to read blogs right now, and I've never been great at responding to comments, but please know that I deeply appreciate each and every one of you. Spring's wound is healing in leaps and bounds. Now that we've moved to dressing changes every other day, I'm noticing way more progress. If only that was our only issue, we would be rapidly approaching rehab rides. Alas, the fetlock remains low and her hock has all but straightened out. Sheis starting to get tired of the stall rest routine, and on our outdoor hand grazing adventures she is becoming increasingly difficult. Which, understandable. Outside (even in the cold) is often much more preferable to the confines of her stall. It's now become a two person job to rebandage her leg - someone has to hold one of her other legs up while I apply all 7 layers of bandage because she won't stand for it otherwise. Today ther...

Spring's wound is healing as well as can be expected - she has a solid bed of granulation tissue and the wound finally seems to be shrinking. All the good things we want to happen are happening, slowly but surely. But. Because of course there is a but. Her fetlock has dropped significantly. And that indicates that her suspensory apparatus, which we thought was unscathed, may have sustained irreparable damage. I'm there, every single day. I clean and rebandage her wound every single day. I keep a positive outlook and stay hopeful every day. But tonight I can't find it in me to keep hoping. Tonight, the reality of my situation is crashing down. Tonight I'm facing the fact that it may all be for nothing, and that once the wound heals and we can finally ultrasound the results have a high probability of being less than ideal. I'm so tired, and so sad, and so completely out of hope.

My apologies for the lack of updates - my phone was run over last week and so I've been a bit disconnected. The lack of posting, however, has thankfully only missed good news. The leg is healing, slowly but surely. I've started using manuka honey as an ointment with my vet's blessing, and Spring has had three Magnawave sessions at this point along with a final dose of Excede. Day 1 (October 3) through Day 16 (today) - although the center still has some necrotic tissue (most of which was debrided today), the vet is very happy with how the wound is healing. I am still making the trek to the barn every single day to clean and dress the wound, and I never thought I'd say this but I am getting pretty sick of that place. It sucks to be there and never ride - all my extra money has to go to vet bills, vet wrap, and gauze. Spring continues to be a model patient. We snuck outside for a few minutes on Sunday morning (without sedation!) and she happily munched...

Reader beware: graphic images forthcoming When we last left our heroine, she was oozing pus and her leg was looking pretty nasty (although healing). Today the vet came out for a re-check and decided the time had come to remove some dead tissue to promote the healing process.  And guys. It was not pretty. But it was also impossible to look away.  First the wound was scrubbed thoroughly and the tissue manipulated so that the vet could decide what needed to go. This caused the hole (hidden most of the time by dead and dying tissue) to be fully revealed.  All that yellow tissue needed to go - it was beyond repair.  Bleeding, in the case of healthy vs dead tissue, is good. The tissue removed did not cause bleeding. Once it had been removed, though, everything left behind was much pinker in color and much more bloody.  Once the bad tissue was all removed, we took my sleepy mare to the wash rack to thoroughly flush the wou...

Little miss is healing as well as can be expected at this point - although her wound looks disgusting (IMO), the vet says that it is healing well. Unfortunately her good leg is really starting to show signs of strain, so we're trying to give it some relief in any way we can (although keeping it wrapped is not the best option).  The wound care process begins with the removal of the standing wrap that lives on Spring's good leg and then taking her to the washrack, where the vet wrap and gauze pad covering the actual wound are removed. I wear gloves for the removal part because usually everything is pretty saturated with drainage.  Gross picture warning!! Day 3 -> Day 5 -> Day 9 Once all the bandaging materials have been removed , I make an attempt to cold hose the leg (which Spring is not a fan of - it's the only part of the entire process that she still gets cranky about).  Then I throw gloves back on and use gauze and sterile water to gent...

Words from my vet: "IF it was infection/ rupture from hematogenous route to a bruised area then her prognosis is very good- stall rest until the wound closes up.  If there is also tendon damage involved which we cannot tell until she heals up more then we might have a longer road, but I have high hopes on the first scenario "

This morning I headed out to the barn bright and early (thanks, mare, for setting my internal alarm clock to 4:45 AM) to take care of Spring's leg before starting my day. She greeted me with a nicker, and looked brighter than she has in days. She was even putting weight on her hind leg! I pulled the wraps off and they were nasty - whatever lymph and infectiony gunk is draining from that leg had soaked through (I swear the wraps weighed about 5 lbs), so I ran them to the washing machine to start before coming back to her stall.  WARNING: GROSS LEG PICTURES TO FOLLOW When I came back, I noticed a weird lump on the inside of the RH that hadn't been there before. I didn't particularly *want* to take a closer look at it because why, why, why mare must you have a new problem every day?! But I did, and it was..alarming to see. Sometime in the night, whatever infection has been brewing apparently decided to make a break for freedom. An ooze of yellow and red was erupting...

On Sunday afternoon I headed to the barn to go through the ritual of unwrapping, icing, waiting, icing, and rewrapping Spring's leg. She gave me a dirty look and proceeded to be extremely rude about the whole ordeal, picking her leg up and threatening to kick and generally just being a less-than-ideal patient. (To be honest I'm glad that even though she's clearly in pain, she still has her normal personality quirks) I noticed that Spring seemed to be breathing more quickly than usual for a stalled horse and that she felt kind of warm, so after hunting all over the barn for a thermometer I took her temperature - 101.7. Not alarmingly high, but the mare's getting 2g of bute 2x a day so it seemed odd that her temp would be elevated. I had my trainer look at her, and since she was behaving normally and eating her dinner we decided to just keep an eye on it. Trainer called me later that night after she left the barn to say that the breathing seemed back to normal.  ...

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that things with Spring have not been great over the last three weeks. She got tangled up in a fence three Thursdays ago, and although she seemed relatively unscathed she did have some superficial scrapes and bumps. The vet happened to be out that morning to look at another horse (who had somehow managed to take a chunk out of her face on HER pasture fence), so I had her glance at Spring to make sure that nothing too serious was going on.  She recommended a few days of bute and stall rest with light work, then a return to normal work/turnout. Spring was feeling fantastic under saddle, and was more than happy to be turned out again after her brief stall rest stint. Unfortunately, she chose to celebrate her return to the pasture by pulling her RF shoe. On a Monday. The farrier doesn't come out until Thursdays. Still, she remained sound without the shoe and we got a few light rides in the indoor while we waited for Thursday to come...