Category: adventures with the vet

adventures with the vet · winter

The Eye(s) Report

AmandaLeave a comment

After getting the call that Tristan’s eye was a bit puffy and swollen, I canceled my quiet evening plans (I had recipes all picked out and everything!) and headed to the barn to check on him.

I quickly learned two things. First, his eye really wasn’t bad at all.

Though, before we start, I’d like to make something clear. As with any medical situation with a horse, you should know two things. First: know what your horse’s baseline is. That means following Pony Club guidelines and knowing your horse’s average temperature, respiration, heartbeat, and other bodily norms. Pay close attention even when they’re totally fine because that’s how you calibrate your instincts. Second: DO NOT mess around with eye injuries. Don’t. Don’t ever look at your horse’s eye and say “hmmm, that’s definitely weird, but I’ll let it slide for a few days and see what happens.” Many injuries, even bad ones, will hold in stasis for a few days while you observe; eyes can go south in a matter of hours and you do not want that on your conscience.

I am making a judgment call about not scheduling the vet because I have nearly a decade of experience with this horse and the things he does. I have treated a wide variety of eye problems with him specifically, and I have both a very good baseline and a clear timeline of progression. If his eye gets worse in any way, the vet will be out faster than you could finish reading this post. Okay? Okay. On to the pictures.

A little puffy, a little weepy. He was acting totally normal, and blinking a hair more rapidly with his left eye than with his right when I moved my hand near it. The white you see is the reflection of the flash – there was no cloudiness or other abnormality in person. The tears coming out were clear and thin and draining easily.

For comparison. He’s alert, which means both his eyes are open and looking at me as much as they are capable of. You can see that his left eye is a bit squintier than his right, and you can see the track of the discharge from his left eye. But you can also see that it’s really not that far off normal.
The barn will keep an eye on him today, and if he’s basically back to normal per their observation then I won’t go out tonight. If there’s any remaining puffiness I’ll head out and triple-check, and tomorrow morning will probably be our make-or-break for the vet. Based on his usual modus operandi, though, I strongly suspect it will be 99% cleared up by the end of the day today.
The second thing that I learned at the barn last night was that I was totally right to have decided against working him.
About 7 degrees per this thermometer, which is a) inside the barn and b) on the outside wall of the heated tack room. So that should tell you something about actual outside temperatures!

adventures with the vet

In which Tristan proves he still knows how to terrify me

Amanda2 Comments

There is no adrenaline rush quite like seeing the barn’s name on your cell phone screen as it rings. And the first few seconds of cheerful pleasantry when you really want to yell OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED IS MY HORSE DEAD?

Nope, not dead. But his left eye is a bit swollen and weepy. Not swollen shut – just with some puffiness top and bottom. He is totally blase about the whole thing, per the barn worker who called. She flushed it with saline (I don’t envy her that at all, he is Not Happy about having his eyes flushed) and reports no cloudiness or overt sensitivity.

I can point to you the precise moment he got something in it, too: yesterday, in the indoor, rolling around. See, when Tristan rolls, he shimmies up and down his back too and then he lays his head on the ground, one side then the other, and drags and griiiiiinds it into the dirt. I’ve never seen another horse roll quite like that. Add to that his general tendency to have weepy eyes anyway (I had his tear ducts flushed some years ago to see if that was the culprit and nope, zero change) and it’s not uncommon for him to get a little something in his eye, especially if he’s in a sandy space like an arena or a dry lot.

There have been times when I’ve called the vet in for emergency appointments due to his eye. In one memorable winter he had emergency vet calls on Friday nights twice in one month. Those were bad: swollen shut, weeping and crusty. They took a few days of flushing, hot compresses, and preventive antibiotics. He was also quite clearly a little miserable.

So after many years, if he does this – comes in a bit swollen, a bit weepy, but otherwise unbothered – I don’t call the vet unless there is a progression. I flush, and if I am fussed enough, do a hot compress or two.

Of course, I had just decided not to go to the barn tonight, but I know myself too well – if I don’t head out and check on him I’ll be a big ball of anxiety all night. Ixnay on the relaxing evening spent organizing stuff and baking…

adventures with the vet

Noted: Legend

AmandaLeave a comment

At least partially for my own purposes:

Tris got his botulism vaccine and his Legend shot today. He had yesterday off (scheduled, originally to accommodate the vaccine in case he was stiff) and today as well (unscheduled, after hearing the vaccine had been delayed).

Let the obsessive observation commence!

adventures with the vet · farrier · winter

Winter is coming

Amanda2 Comments

First things first: I’ve often said that my barn, which is at a higher elevation than most of the other places in my life, has its own weather patterns. Last night that proved true: I left work and drove up and up and up…and at a certain point, the cold rain solidified and turned white, and I stared in disbelief for a few minutes before swearing.

Luckily, none of it stuck. But winter is well and truly on its way: all the trees are naked, it’s below freezing every night even in the valley, and this weekend we’re putting in storm windows and sealing everything off under plastic.

Tris is going well. We had a good intense ride on Wednesday, and when I got off he was sweaty through his fuzzy winter coat. Whoops. So, 45 minutes of cooling out and drying (walking, swapping coolers) for 35 minutes of riding. It’s been a very long time since he’s been sweaty like that through his winter coat. Hopefully he’ll go back to his usual self soon, because I really do not want to play the clipping and blanketing game.

His most exciting news now is that also on Wednesday the farrier did his feet – and he’s back in normal steel shoes! Hooray! The notch in his toe is small enough that it looks like a bad chip, and the farrier left the epoxy out entirely. By the end of the winter the foot will look practically normal – it’ll still have some of the bulge from growing out but that will only be visible on close inspection.

Next week, he’ll get his flu/rhino booster, and they’re vaccinating the whole barn for botulism – which I did not know you could do! It’s precautionary, since they’re going to put a lot of the horses on round bales in pasture this winter, and apparently it has a million boosters but round 1 is next week. He’ll get his Legend shot at the same time and we’ll see where we are.

Last but not least, he’s starting to add weight again. He dropped a fair bit in the summer to fall changeover, and he was looking downright ribby for a little while, so we upped his hay, switched him to senior grain, and upped his grain in general, all in slow stages. The idea was not to just fling calories at him but to do it in small increments and find a leveling off, since he’s usually such an easy keeper. It was worrying quite a lot for a while but we are definitely on the right track now.

Whew.

adventures with the vet

sigh.

AmandaLeave a comment

So Thursday night I got to the barn for Tristan’s massage, and the barn manager intercepted me and said that since Tristan came in, he’d been blowing up with hives. Got to his stall and yep, wow, hives everywhere – face, legs, belly, flank, you name it. Bad spots were masses of lumps; even the good spots had big lumps at 2-3 inch intervals. What the HELL. Nothing in his life changed at all – no idea what was triggering it.

That night we gave him 2ccs of dex, and the hives came down by the evening and were fading away through Friday, when he got a fly sheet for turnout. Today, got the call that he is blowing up with them again after coming in from turnout. 2ccs of dex again, and tomorrow he’ll go out in a dry lot –  hopefully he’s just rolling in something?

Tomorrow he’ll get a full bath with some good shampoo, and hopefully we can break the cycle?

ENOUGH, already.

adventures with the vet · farrier

Can’t catch a break…

AmandaLeave a comment

So, updates, finally.

Last Saturday night I left work and got to the barn, saw that the farrier had not trimmed Tristan’s back feet to even out the chips, and decided to take matters into my own hands. I gave them a really truly good cleaning out with hoof pick, hose, hoof pick again, you name it. As I kept cleaning I started getting a sick feeling and when I finished I confirmed it: white line disease in both back feet, hence the chipping and crumbling of the hoof wall. It was pretty bad. So I did a full-on White Lightning soak on both back feet and picked out his stall to the nines so he could go back to a clean dry place for the night. I then proceeded to drive to New Hampshire feeling about two inches tall and like the worst horse owner in the whole world. The next morning I texted both the farrier and the barn owner to let them know what was going on. As of today I still haven’t heard from the farrier. Sigh.

I returned from vacation on Tuesday night, pulled Tris out of his stall…to discover that his left front was hot and blown up to the knee. Let’s review: surgery  on the right front for a broken/infected coffin bone, white line disease in both hinds, and now his last remaining good leg was definitely not good.

I jogged him out and to my eye and to the trainer’s eye he looked only sliiiiightly off at the trot. I was pretty sure I could feel a knot of tougher tissue on the inside of the leg, just above the fetlock, so the working theory was he knocked it in turnout. I clipped around the knot area just to make sure it wasn’t a puncture wound, then cold hosed for 10 minutes, then rubbed in Sore No More, then walked him for 15 minutes under saddle, then cold hosed for another 10 minutes, then rubbed more Sore No More, and then the barn manager did standing wraps on his front legs because, shameful admission time, I have never learned how to do a standing wrap. Then I added a gram of bute to his evening grain and his morning grain for the next day.

The next morning his leg was, per BM, tight again, but when he came in after turnout and stood in his stall it went up again, though not nearly to the previous night. Repeat previous night’s routine save the wrapping – I hadn’t paid close enough attention the night before and was terrified of bowing a tendon. The next morning he was still up and it didn’t go down with turnout, so I worked on it Thursday night, same routine, and the barn manager taught me to do my own freaking wraps, so I wrapped him. Down again overnight, up again in the afternoon, just a touch better Friday night. Lather, rinse, repeat. I added just a touch of trotting in last night and he moved out well, felt sound to me and looked sound to the assistant trainer. Plus he has zero compunctions about pawing like an idiot on that LF constantly, so it can’t hurt that much.

I checked in with the vet on Thursday and if the leg was still up on Friday I said I’d have her out on Monday, so hip hooray for another vet bill! Hoping it goes down over the weekend and this is a formality, but at this point – I would’ve thought 48 hours and out for a good knock and I’m terrified that he may have strained or torn something.

adventures with the vet · stupid human tricks

Sulking and other childish things

Amanda2 Comments

Not my best week ever. Oh, lots got done – nothing bad happened – but I’ve been off-kilter all week. NQR, as we would say about a horse.

Monday, I worked in the trainer’s barn (two barns on the property, part of the same farm, one big year-round where Tris lives and one smaller summer barn where trainer bases the fancy horses, different barn managers and staff b/c they are technically separate businesses – it’s actually much simpler than it seems). I did about 3.5 hours of turnout, mucking, watering, sweeping, etc. Not everyone crosses over between the barns and I was frankly flattered to be asked as handling a barn full of Grand Prix horses is not something everyone gets to do!

Then I dashed out to deposit a check (I still have moving hangover in re my banks, it’s been an ongoing frustration) and got back to the barn in time to hop on Tris for 45 minutes before his massage. Massage went well, identified a few tight/hot spots and got some stretches/exercises to shore up his abs in particular. I described the weird LH wonkiness of last week to J., his masseuse, and she found some spots of tension in his left lower back and then found what can only be described as a divot, about the size of the tip of my pinkie, over his left SI joint. Like he’d gotten bit and had a chunk taken out of him only totally healed over, etc. She was worried that he’d pulled apart some scar tissue or done some other internal damage, though he was 100% unreactive to lots and lots of pressure and is 100% sound.

Cue worrying, and I hung around the barn for another two hours waiting for the vet who was due that afternoon to look at a few other horses. She felt all over and had me jog him and declared him 100%, but didn’t have a good explanation for the divot. She suggested maybe we’d just missed it before and it looked ominous in the context of the LH problem, or that it had shifted slightly, but either way – no sensitivity, no soreness, no nothing. Keep on keeping on.

I spent about 9 hours total at the barn, and that was the last time I’ve been to the barn since. I worked two 12+ hour days in a row for our Independence day stuff at work (open long hours, playing historic children’s games, and marching in a parade) and then on July 4 we opted not to drive 4.5 hours to my family in Maine to celebrate with them but instead stayed in Vermont and slept in.

The day kept winding on and I did some productive things (scrubbed a toilet, baked a loaf of bread, tidied up a bit) but mostly I lay about and felt blah. It has been unbelievably, insanely wet and hot and humid here these last few weeks and it has finally cascaded to me not wanting to move, on top of my long work week. No easing on the horizon for work, either, if anything more stress, and I never made it to the barn. I got fussy and cranky and succumbed to the useless/lazy feelings that have been dogging me all week and are out in force today. I’m furious at myself for sitting around on a day off and not riding, and setting his rehab schedule back, and generally not getting anything done around the house. Big ol’ case of impostor syndrome all over the place.

Anyway. Back in the saddle tonight, and maybe I’ll chase away some of the blues.

adventures with the vet · rehab

God Damn It.

Amanda4 Comments

Last night I wasn’t quite feeling it – it had been pouring rain all afternoon and I mostly wanted to go home and curl up with a book – but I headed out to the barn, tacked up, and got on.

We did 15 minutes of walking, then 5 of trot, and while it was stiff to start off with we really hit a nice rhythm by the end. I’m focusing hard on rhythm more than anything else, and in the last few rides we’ve really nailed it. This was the first ride we nailed it in the first trot.

Then we walked again, and about three minutes into the walk, he went lame. No funny step that I could feel. Literally from one step to the next he went from ambling along on a loose rein to stumbling drunkenly. I pushed him through a few strides, then got off and walked him in hand to watch, then put him on the longe line.

Definitely off, definitely left hind. His right front, his surgery foot, was totally fine, but his LH was not tracking up and was swinging to the outside. It was far worse tracking left, and he was head-bobbing. He looked alllllmost ok to the right. When I halted him he rested the LH.

I brought him back to the aisle, untacked him, and ran my hands down every inch of his leg, palpated all over, compared with the RH, did everything I could possibly think of to detect ANYTHING, and nothing. No heat, no swelling, no nothing. He kept picking up his foot when I poked at his fetlock but that is SOP for him (it’s his favorite foot), and while it had some fill it matched the RH fill and again, not at all out of the ordinary for him. (Front legs were clean and tight all the way down.) I rubbed some Biofreeze into the fetlock because I had some samples and I wanted to do something, however likely useless it was.

Ok; I walked him up and down the barn aisle to see if something had resolved, and again, not quite tracking up, swinging a bit to the outside, and when I turned him in the aisle to the left to go back he stumbled – like when he put his weight on that LH to swivel he couldn’t balance on it.

GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Hopefully he took a slightly funny step, tweaked a muscle, and just needs a few days of rest. All of our work has been focused on building up his hind end, so he may have been a bit overstressed. The barn manager will let me know how he walks out of his stall today, we’ll keep an eye, and he’ll have a massage on Monday that will help with assessment and possibly treatment. If there’s no improvement or clear cause, we’ll get re-acquainted with our vet next week.

abscess · adventures with the vet · budget · surgery

Doing the Math

Amanda5 Comments

If you follow the COTH forums long enough, you’ll see multiple threads about horse budgeting – and in every single thread, at least one person says that he/she never actually looks at how much it costs to keep a horse.

I don’t understand that attitude at all. When I first got Tristan, I was making just under $20,000 a year. I knew where every single penny went – most of them into him. I am doing better now, but I work in nonprofits. I’ll never make so much that I don’t know how much I spend on him.

With that in mind, here is the end result on a project I’ve had in my head for a little while: start to finish, how much Tristan’s coffin bone chip cost. The period in question is June 8, 2012 through May 16, 2013, when he got his fancy glue-on shoes. I’ve broken it down by categories:

Veterinary Care – vet calls and treatment (hands on care)
Farrier Care – shoeing, which he would not have had had he not gone off
Diagnostics – x-rays, mostly
Medications – bute, antibiotics, sedatives, specific supplements
Supplies – epsom salt, vet wrap, duct tape, and the like

I could also do a category called opportunity costs – for the scratched Valinor and King Oak entries, for the 7-8 lessons I pre-paid and left behind when I moved to Vermont, and I’m sure for other things if I thought about it. Easily around $500 or so.

So:

  • Veterinary Care – $2,037.59
  • Farrier Care – $990
  • Diagnostics – $1,070.75
  • Medications – $1,313.70
  • Supplies – $688.05
Total: $6,100.08
Some of my separations were silly; I split the surgery up several ways (vet care, board, diagnostics, medication) when the two days of hospital care, surgery, and drugs cost $2,189.20, which is DIRT CHEAP if you ask me. I am also certain that I missed a few epsom salt and duct tape purchases in reviewing my budget numbers, so that category may be off by $50 or so.
The medications column ended up being the longest, and it was mostly sedatives for his farrier issues. The big ticket items under supplies were his EasyBoots, the two regular sizes and then the third larger size he had to get at the vet clinic. The diagnostics were entirely x-rays, four different sets of them and the one radiologist consult.
Out of all the vet visits, if you look at each visit as a cohesive cost unit, the surgery cost the most, obviously, but after that it was that first visit, the one on June 8 for the first abscess diagnosis that was the most costly. (In more ways than one, since that was the one that sent us down the wrong track!)
In conclusion, this seems astoundingly low to me. In my head it was closer to $10k. Paying for it has still emptied three savings accounts (Tristan’s, my farm down payment, and my tax return) and put a serious dent in my emergency fund. Still, it’s a testament to those early days living on noodles and sleeping in all my winter gear on the couch in front of the wood stove because I couldn’t afford to turn the heat up that I was able to cover it all and that I could pursue the problem to its final solution.
adventures with the vet · rehab · road hacking · scribing

Busy, busy, busy!

AmandaLeave a comment

Sunday I spent most of the day at the barn. I started off scribing for a schooling show, with this gorgeous view:

Then I headed down to the barn to get ready for Tristan’s noon massage appointment. I had some time to kill, so I organized my tack trunk under supervision of Barn Cat Squirt:

Then I got on Tris and did 20 minutes of walking and 5 of trot. He was a bit tired and wobbly after the trot, but felt even and sound and generally very good. His massage went well – he was in need of work but no hot spots jumped out.

After the massage, back up the hill to eat lunch and run tests from the judges to the scorekeepers, and then to watch the last few tests – a few second levels and a western dressage test. I am not sure what to make of the western test; it looked pleasant and steady enough but was supposedly a first level test and I didn’t see anything like what I would characterize as first level dressage work. I think I’m just not sure what to look for.

Just as the last test was ending, we were put under a severe weather alert. Those mountains, from the photo above, started disappearing as black clouds headed our way. We put everything away as quickly as possible, I went down to the barn to bring Tris back inside (I’d left him out in a paddock with some hay) and got in my car to head home. The storm was already in Montpelier, but I thought I’d be able to cut a corner of it and be ok.

Nope! In fact, I never got more than a few miles from the barn – trees and branches down everywhere, wind buffeting my car, unbelievable dark skies and clear lightning bolts. I turned back around, parked at the barn, and helped the trainer batten down the hatches and fill water buckets before we lost power.

The storm blew over fairly quickly, but it was intense while it lasted. Another 45 minutes or so and I headed home, determined to wind through back roads now that driving was safer. I did have to go offroad around one tree, but once I got back on state roads driving was fine.

Monday I put a saddle on and we explored some of the dirt roads, doing about 20 minutes of walking, and then headed back to the barn to do some trot work on better, more level footing. Another student was doing a little fake course – poles laid out on outside lines and diagonals like a hunter course – to practice riding with intent and remembering a course. The barn manager, who was teaching the lesson, asked if I could be a “competitor” to show the student how a different person might ride the lines.

I entered the ring, circled to set up an approach to the first “jump”, and asked Tristan for a trot. His brain clicked in, and he pretty clearly looked around and said “Ohhhhh, I get it, we’re riding a course! For courses, we canter!” So he gave me a stride of canter – correct lead, no less! I cracked up and brought him back to a trot. He offered another stride when we turned from long side to diagonal. Other than that he did great and it was fun to ride even over a pretend course!

Tonight we did some bareback hacking up dirt roads, and then trot in the indoor ring. At some point today he rubbed dirt into his left eye, and it was a bit more swollen and weepy than I wanted to see. It’s not unusual for him to grind things into his eye; when he rolls he really rubs his head hard, and his tear ducts have always been extra weepy. He’s had outright eye infections before, but this time it was swollen but not frighteningly so, weepy with clear tears, not any kind of pus, and still itchy – not painful – so I flushed it with saline, applied a hot compress for a bit, and they will check on him in the morning. If it’s still iffy we’ll get the vet out again. Of course…