Sleepless

One of those weekends.

Friday, I had a busy day scheduled.  I have an upcoming clinical internship for the program I'm currently in, so I am taking vacation time from my real job to go on the unpaid internship.  However, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to verify vaccination status, have a varicella (chicken pox) titer drawn, and so forth.  I also needed to be certified in a specific type of CPR as well.

So Friday, I had CPR training.  No worries, I am now prepared to hang out and help direct people in times of a crisis.  ;)

After CPR class, I had to stop by the hospital clinic to get another tuberculosis skin test done.  

Post skin test, it was time to go to a work related event.  OK, it was a baseball game, but the thing is that I really don't understand it.  I know it's a popular sport, but it ended up being a mandatory type evening of taking with clients that didn't really want to be talking to me either, I think.  But at least with the talking, there wasn't so much baseball watching expected.

Saturday was class for most of the day.  It was the start of another class, so that was fine.  We practiced drawing blood off of our classmates again and I was thankful I can still find a vein.

My poor classmate managed to miss mine though, but at least the hematomas aren't too bad.  ;) 

After class, I went home to weigh and bag up horse grain for the coming week when I got a call that the Semi Feral Mare wasn't looking well.

Good grief.

So my weekend stretched even longer.  The vet came out and she was colicing.  Banamine reduced her pain, but she had a lot of gas in her cecum.  Instead of poor gut sounds (like her last colic episode), she had hypermotility.  There is medication that can be administered to slow down hypermotility, however, with excessive gas, there are some risks. 

So I ended up waiting it out during the night with her to see how she responded as the banamine wore off and if she would drink and help move some of the gas along and to watch if she had additional issues if she displaced.

A little before one, I finally went home after she was looking more comfortable. 

My barn owner was kind enough to go and check on her a few hours later and so did the barn manager when she got in.  My husband even went and sent me a photo while I was up and at work early Sunday morning.

Sunday morning was painful with the lack of sleep.  Horses.  They drive us crazy with or without them.

SFM looked chipper tonight.  There was a sudden weather swing, which I think lead to the filly being a little off.  Good grief.  I think I am going to give her a bit of time off until the vet comes out for the fall dentals/vaccinations as she needs her teeth floated and there is no purpose besides my own ego in pushing a young horse and developing habits I can't undo.

But, I ended up lunging the filly for a few minutes after some banamine to see if she perked up.  Fortunately, after a period of time she did, completing her lunging routine with some gazelle leaps.  Leaping isn't really encouraged in my world, but I was glad to see her perking up again.

I ended up riding the mare instead.  There were a lot more horses riding in the indoor arena and it's hard to lunge with other people around, so I wanted to go out for a slow waddle.  Mare was full of P&V so we ended up having a short work out with a bunch of trot circles and even some nice walk-canter transitions.  I really didn't mean to ask her for much, but she held herself together and worked well for a few minutes, so I called it quits.

Demon eyed filly tonight

It can be hard in the fall with the changes in the weather (it dropped almost forty degrees in less than an hour), the grass sugar changes, and hay changes.  It kind of has lead to a bit of sleepless paranoia at times.  How on Earth do horses manage to not kill themselves everywhere else on planet?