Jingling for Bear!
Laurierace, I had asked about a cather, but Bear is now in a sand pen and he loves to roll. Not a good combination.
AARRGGHHHH. Bear ate his 5pm and his 10pm dinners and his 6am breakfast. So I decided to put pain meds and Ulcerguard in his 10am brunch. Do you think he ate ANY of it? Just because there were about $40 of meds in there? Just to please his Mommy?
[Before anyone says that he did not eat it becuase of the meds – well, he ate his food with these meds in it for a week, and he had eaten (slurped) his prior 3 meals. I know he is just trying to make me :sadsmile:]
Horses… it’s all I can say. HORSES!!!
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8006819]
[Before anyone says that he did not eat it becuase of the meds – well, he ate his food with these meds in it for a week, and he had eaten (slurped) his prior 3 meals. I know he is just trying to make me :sadsmile:][/QUOTE]
Hey, they have to draw the line somewhere and clearly those extra expensive meds are his line of not enough yummy hiding stuff to yucky med ratio.
He is clearly a little too smart.
Back from State. Long and tiring day. Good news: the screws have all held. There is one wire which has broken, but the other stuff has stayed in place.
Reading between the lines, I think the Dr’s have focused in on a pocket of infection which has been responsible for the constant draining of pus from above the surgery hole in his head. Prior to this exam, I had not gotten an answer as to why there should still be so much pus, even 2 weeks after surgery. Well, they found a track going up inside his head (which had been open and then was stapled over) from which a LOT of gunky stuff (I believe that is the technical term for it) came out when they flushed up in there.
So, now he is back on the antibiotics which should kill an anerobic infection (he was taken off them on Sat and he started to be NQR on Monday…)
They took a swab for another culture, which should be back in about 10 days, if the last culture is indicative of anything. :mad:
And now I have to stick the pointy end of a 60cc syringe up inside his head, through the hole that has been draining and flush the oogies out 2x day. My stomach is churning and my throat is closing up, even thinking about this.
BTDT, it was one that had impaled itself going through a fence for some unknown reason. Neighborhood kids and firecrackers being the most likely suspects. It was a lovely, decorative redwood fence, redwood splinters worse then any other when broken.
Entry wound was up the inside of the hind leg along the rear of the udder, exit wound on one side of the base of the tail. The vet was able to cleanly pull in out. I was at work and did not " get" to see her standing with the board coming out top and bottom. It missed anything of importance.
Anyway, for a week, I got to spread the edges of the top wound apart, stick the big syringe in and irrigate it. After the third day, the flow out the bottom wound lessened each following day. I still had to force the top open as per instructions until it stopped draining. Mare didn’t care, probably itched. That also when I learned to give IM shots.
Cowboy up girl, you can do it.
LH, you have my sympathies on the ‘oogie’ stuff… I don’t handle that well either.
But, good news that the basic fracture repair has held and a plan for tackling the infection.
poor baby Bear and poor you for all your work. Sounds like he is on the mend.
Is he still eating and drinking??
Still jingling for both of you.
I have photos of the abscess that came from my horse’s broken jaw. It was huge and awful and didn’t heal completely for months. But it did finally heal. I had to do the syringe thing myself. It was a very good thing that my fellow was a very good patient.
Well, two comments. Ewwwww…and YAHOO! Sounds like you are getting some answers, and some traction. Many jingles still coming your way, and hugs to you and your Bear.
Glad that the screws are still doing their job. Hopefully now with the irrigation and heavy duty antibiotics you’ll get the infection under control.
At least this sounds like progress, but I don’t envy what you have to do. Maybe wear a mask to help with some of the smell, if there is any. That’s what I remember the most, not so much with Star when he broke his jaw, but with another horse that got a puncture inside his mouth that it took us some time to find (cue long story about incompetent vet and working student who kept her mouth shut when she should not have). Once we got the latter horse cleaned up and on antibiotics, the smell went away pronto. It did help that that particular horse would take the hose in his mouth and hold it–made the whole flushing thing very simple.
Hang in there!
As my friend the nurse says, wear gloves. You can do anything wearing gloves. She’s right. It puts you one step removed from the oogie stuff and you can just get on with it.
Glad you two went … glad you two are home ~
Glad you two went … glad you two are home ~
Plan your work and work your plan ~
Jingles laced with strength and patience for both ~
Bear is not good. I called the vet’s office right at 8. Vet is coming at 9. Bear WILL have a catheter put in this morning and he WILL get enough pain meds to make him comfortable.
I WILL not let him be in pain for a moment longer.
ETA: He perked up enough to eat his lunch yesterday, but has not eaten any other food since Friday. My friend, a vet tech, has been coming by every evening to flush out his oogies and help me hold his head up for his night meds. But that obviously hurts him a lot because he started drooling the long strings of spit after his meds last night and has not closed his mouth or eaten since. (Just in case anyone thought I had put off calling the vet just because it was the weekend. — I have no compunction calling a vet at 3am on a weekend if my horse needs it. But the slide which started a week ago has reached a new low as of this am.)
I fully believe that it is better to euthanize a horse a week to soon, rather than a day too late. With that in mind, I am going to see what the next 48 hours hold for my old friend.
You might have to start thinking soon about what else you want to do for Bear, and how far you want to go 
It sounds like it’s been a couple weeks now, and he’s not comfortable. Bear is also older. Has he gotten any better in this time?
If he still has an attitude and looks good that’s one thing, but it sounds like he’s in some pretty significant pain, and he can’t be on torb/bute/etc forever.
sorry to hear this update. Crossing my fingers some heavier duty pain meds help
So sorry to read this update.
I’ll be Jingling for Bear & for you.
Vet came. He IM’d 1/2cc of Torb and IV’d a Bute/Banamine mixture. The Torb seems to be a very low level, but perhaps the combo of it and the Bute/Banamine will help. He gets the Torb every 6 hours and I can do IM shots just fine.
Vet said that he should begin to have interest in the world by noon’ish. He is out in his pen because he loves to be out. If he does not want ot eat his slop at noon, I might get some soft alfalfa and soak it. I know that he should not chew, but, at this point Bear can have whatever he wants.
We will see how he is doing tomorrow morning. Vet agrees that sometimes old horses just do not/cannot fight the good fight anymore.
So sorry, hoping for improvement.
