Sorry I wasn’t able to update yesterday. The vet FINALLY got out there at 4pm. They were MASSIVE blood clots. She removed nearly 3 huge handfuls of large congealed clots just from the opening. She didn’t go up inside, because she said some clots are good.
As soon as she removed them he started a pretty heavy stream of blood, but she said that was normal because the clots hadn’t allowed him to drain. She said if the bleeding continued past an hour or two to call her. It slowed to where I could count the drips during the following hour, so I brought my kids home and went back an hour later. His stall was literally puddles of blood from one end to the other and he was literally streaming blood. I could have filled up a cup every few minutes with the amount of blood streaming out.
Hysterical of course, I called the vet, who had just been called out to a colic call an hour away. She said to try and pack it with sterile gauze to staunch the bleeding until she could get there. I tried several times but, rightfully so, he tried to take my head off a couple times. So I had to wait for the vet, which killed me because I couldn’t help him. Then, he started lifting his leg up and tearing at his incision with his teeth.
I kid you not, about 10 minutes before the vet got there he clotted on his own and the bleeding stopped. Vet got there, decided NOT to disturb it since it stopped, and we got some pain meds on board so he would hopefully leave it alone overnight.
I had a friend at the barn check on him this morning since I can’t get there till 9:15 every morning, and she said no blood in the stall, and he is bright eyed and perky and demanding to be let out. I stripped his stall 4x last night so I could keep track of how much blood he was losing. He was pretty dull and mopey after all this, so I am glad to hear he has perked up.
Today they want me to exercise him 20 minutes and follow with 20 min of cold hosing 2x a day again and he has to go out in the pasture 24/7 while he is healing to hopefully prevent the severe blood clot situation again. Apparently my running cold water over him instead of using a jet stream or something more aggressive is what caused the clots, so technically it’s my fault, and I feel horrible about it. This poor guy has had a rough 2 days.
Thank you everyone who gave advice, I truly appreciate it! Hopefully this is the last of the complications!
