Rehabilitation

Donni has been improving day by day. I have been somewhat impressed with my skills to administer her daily intravenous antibiotics. While I had previously utilized my skills to draw blood, it's been years since I've done it with any regularity.

Donni has been less than enthusiastic about being a pincushion after her stint two months ago with Potomac Horse Fever. Fortunately, my barn owner was able to help and we were able to get Donni to cooperate. The intramuscular injection was met with much more protest with her rearing up and at one point trying to sit on me, so we ended up using a chain on her with a towel over her ears in the arena to get that done.

Chili had her right hock injected in all of this as well. Since her left hock showed clean on the bone scan and the CT scan, the vet decided that we only needed to address the problem. At about the two week mark, Chili looked markedly more comfortable.

Too bad I'm headed into a miserable Midwest winter ahead, but I am looking forward to trying to get into a regular lesson schedule once my finances have recovered a bit.

Series of Unfortunate Events

 Sometimes life just seems like a series of unfortunate event, which could also be used to describe 2020 in a nutshell.

There seems to be so much to update on, but at least let's update the most significant change in my life.

Meet the original semi-feral equine. This gal has been featured on this blog since it's inception. She's also been so very unlucky. In my thirteen years of owning her, she's fractured a splint bone, lacerated an artery in her hind leg, survived a hind colon displacement, had aspiration pneumonia from a choke, a couple of tendon injuries from kicks from other horses, and most recently, had Potomac Horse Fever two months ago.

Well, one can guess where I'm going. Donni choked on Tuesday. I don't mess wait and see with chokes because of her previous pneumonia history. She has a number of melanomas on the underside of her neck and I've often wondered if it has created a stricture in her esophagus. Since her pneumonia choke, her grain has been wet down, however, that didn't stop a choke episode last year. The vet that attended that choke said it's the most difficult choke she's ever cleared and took about 15 gallons of water to clear.

The good news is the choke on Tuesday only took about 7.5 gallons of water to clear. The vet and I decided to preemptively put her on oral antibiotics due to her previous choke history and the amount of discomfort and respiratory distress she was in during this choke.

Unfortunately, the oral antibiotics weren't sufficient. She started running a fairly high fever while I was at work on Thursday. I called the vet clinic and asked them to come back out and evaluate her. While ultrasounding her, the vet did notice several abscesses in the upper part of her lungs. Despite our effort, she developed pneumonia.

So our current routine is banamine twice a day, depending on if the is running a temperature and how uncomfortable she is, IV antibiotics once a day, and a longer acting injectable intramuscular antibiotic every four days.

Crossing fingers we will see an improvement. Today she ran a fever in the morning without banamine on board, but she is back to picking and eating at her (very wet) equine senior, chatting up a storm asking for more food, and being bright eyed and perky while being turned out. All very good signs, but this horse is so incredibly stoic, it's always been kind of hard to gauge where she is at with these things.

Her condition is cautiously optimistic and I am trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, despite my pocketbook being so very tapped out since her Potomac Horse Fever adventure two months ago.

Answers?

 

So the last few weeks have been some ups and downs. Just dropping my horse off at the veterinary school was a rough experience. It was cold and raining and the process was to pull into the parking lot, they clip a lead rope on your horse, and off the student goes.

Chili is a bit of a sensitive soul so the idea of not being able to check in on her was a bit nerve-wracking.

I wasn't incredibly impressed with the communication from the facility. I didn't hear anything until day two after I had called several times for an update. Day one, they were just injecting her with drugs and the imaging was to be performed the morning of day two. Evening of day two, I called on the way home from work. Still nothing.

The attending veterinarian finally called back around seven and they stated that during the bone scan there was something on the right hock, but they couldn't tell if it was a fracture or traumatic arthritis. They asked for permission to perform a CT scan and I asked if I could call back in the morning after I had talked to the insurance company, as insurance had approved the bone scan and I wanted to know if they would approve the standing CT as well.

Fortunately insurance did approve the CT scan and the end result was no fracture and there appeared to be a spot of (probable) traumatic arthritis on one of the right hock bones. It's hard to say if it is solely a result of the accident in April or something else, but on the plus side, everything else imaged squeaky clean.

At the end of day three, one again in the cold rain, I picked up my horse from the vet school. While I think they did an adequate jobs, there was definitely some more issues with communication that I was not pleased about overall. I was also not happy about the big shaved spot on her neck that I wasn't informed was going to happen, along with at least six different venipuncture spots.

Chili seemed pleased to be home and quite a bit more lame after having not been hand walked or even out of a stall, except for imaging for three days while away. Poor thing! She's definitely not used to being confined and certainly not alone without buddies in sight for that long. She loaded and uploaded like a champ and I walked her around for a while after we got home.

What I found somewhat sweet was that I was currying and scratching her neck after putting her back in her stall at home and she kept nuzzling and nickering to me. She's not an extraordinarily affectionate horse, so maybe she really was telling me not to drop her off alone again. ;)

The suggestion from the imaging at the vet school was to inject the right hock joint, so I saved that for my primary veterinarian. Here's to hoping that this really is the final answer and light at the end of this mysterious lameness tunnel.

Off to the Vet School

 

As previously mentioned, Chili has had some lingering soundness issues since an accident in April. It's perplexing. Some days, she feels great and is developing a lot more push in the trot.

However, I have noticed if I am standing around chatting and ask her to move off again, she can be a little bit of a crab and not move off my leg. After some observation, I realized that she was actually more stiff after moving off than if we keep going the whole ride.

If we go over cavaletti or ground poles, she's more sound.

It's perplexing.

So insurance approved Chili to receive a bone scan, so today's the day. I woke up at 3:15 this morning, abruptly nervous and the whole ordeal. I'm not sure why. She's headed to my local university, but it's a three day ordeal and I obviously am not permitted in the building. It's a lot to surrender control of my horse for three days.

Apparently the first day she will receive meds, tomorrow will be the actual scan, and then Friday she has to urinate out all of the radioactive contrast before we can pick her up.

The theory is that if there are areas of bone remodeling, it should show up brighter on the scan.

Wish her luck and hopefully he get to the bottom of her discomfort.

Saddleseat Style

 I have dabbled in trying a lot of things and pretty much haven't mastered any of it.

One thing I haven't really tried was saddleseat. I have ridden in a cutback saddle a couple of times, including once on my grandmother's horse who took off on me while I was wearing jeans and sneakers. I was twelve so I thought that was pretty cool.

Last week, I went out to a local farm to take some photos of some horses at the request of the trainer. He has a lot of breeds on the property, but I would say he is best known for training Dutch Harness Horses, American Dutch Harness Horses, Hackneys, and Saddlebreds. 

The trainer asked if I wanted to hop on and ride and I said yes of course! My steed was Jeronimo, a very handsome black Dutch Harness Horse stallion with just the right amount of chrome. He was pretty lazy at the trot in the indoor arena, despite having a couple of days off. We went outdoors and once again, he was pretty lazy. I was trying to figure out how to ride a horse whose neck is entirely vertical. I'm pretty sure I was told to shorten the reins and put my hands up approximately 827 times. Apparently I just don't learn that quickly. Probably why I haven't mastered anything yet. ;) 

The trainer was hunting around and finally found a dressage whip he was looking for. It was a pretty remarkable transformation that just by holding the whip, the pretty boy puffed himself up and went into a somewhat respectable big saddleseat type trot. He also magically was able to move off of leg and stopped being in "child's pony" mode. 

Another thing that I had to adapt to besides the long neck, short reins, and his way of going was the encouragement of vocal cues. Whip and a little bit of clucking and he was a fun ride indeed. Quite comfortable to ride, very responsive in a simple snaffle, and a very different, but steady contact in the bridle.

While quite out of my routine normal, it was a very enjoyable experience.

I also enjoyed photographing the handful of horses on the property that evening including a phenomenal roadster Hackney Pony, a couple of girls and their horses they ride there, and a very young, high trotting Dutch Harness Horse foal. 

My cup of joy was certainly full from this adventure. I'm glad I didn't turn down the chance to ride simply because among many of my friends, saddleseat just has the perception of hot, crazy horses and horses that aren't schooled to the leg or bridle. What I found here was pretty much the opposite. A good learning opportunity indeed.

Chili and the Mounting Block

 Sometimes I do things with my horses when there isn't traffic in the arena. Chili isn't a stranger to this type of work, but it has been a while since I've done any particular "liberty" work. I don't really subscribe or follow any trainer's methodology and I've just made it up as I've gone along, so if it looks wonky, it probably is.

But essentially, I try and mount from the taller block every time since it saves significant strain on my bad hip number. The horse needs to line up at the block. I turned it into a game that when she comes over and lines up, she does get a reward. Chili isn't an incredibly food motivated horse, but apparently just enough at times to make this work.

Anyone else do any particular "trick" or "liberty" work with their horses?

PHF

 

 

Last week Sunday. Wasn't sure if we would make it to take this photo

 

A couple weeks ago, I was having a tough time. I left work early on a Friday and went to the barn and just cried. I'm a hospital microbiologist and to be honest, I had reached a point where I felt overwhelmed and so villainized by social media by means of my profession.

I have been fairly isolated since March since my husband and I are essential workers. However, I made the decision that I wanted to support my friend's open show. Chili wasn't up to attending, but she had a couple of horses I could show in hand and under-saddle.

Unfortunately, about halfway through the show, I received a call from my barn that my old grey mare (the original Semi Feral Mare) seemed to have a mild colic and had gone off feed. They had given her probiotics, electrolytes, and banamine and she seemed to be much more comfortable. I made the decision that they were keeping a close eye on her and I was several hours away, so I didn't return home at that moment.

I stopped out that evening and realized there may be something more going on. Unfortunately, she had pretty profuse diarrhea, but no temperature. I called my veterinarian who suggested that if she was eating and drinking to just keep an eye on her and to give her additional electrolytes and biosponge and see how she did.

 

 

 Well, the following morning, she seemed bright eyed and alert, but not quite right. Still no temperature. Of course, had to make an emergency vet call on a Sunday. The vet and I puzzled together, but decided to pull an SAA (serum amyloid A). SAA is a test that can be performed stall-side and rapidly rises if there is an infectious or inflammatory process. Normal range is a value of 0-20. Donni's that morning was over 900.

Oh sugar.

The best guess at this point was Potomac Horse Fever.

Despite the lack of fever, the rest of her symptoms seemed to fit. It was a bit of difficult news to take. Donni is 25 and with Cushing's. One of the major symptoms with Potomac Horse Fever (PHF) is laminitis, which often does not respond well to treatment and management.

 

 

Together with my veterinary clinic and barn owner, we started a plan. Another boarder had a pair of Softride boots I could borrow, which should help support her feet and hopefully help avoid laminitis.

Daily banamine, probiotics, biosponge, electrolytes, and IV antibiotics. My vets came every day and I had a wonderful barn owner who held her for the veterinarians to give antibiotics and fluids since in my critical job, I absolutely couldn't leave work (especially since I was in the middle of an accreditation inspection).

It really was one of the first times in my life that I surrendered control and decisions of my horses to a team I had to absolutely trust. My veterinary team dutifully called the daily report to me while I was at work and for a while, her SAA kept going up each day. I was pretty distraught and frustrated. What were we looking at?

Another veterinary friend did the biggest service and helped me think through and stay the (expensive) course.

Finally on Thursday, her numbers started to improve. Progress! Last Saturday, we gave her last dose of IV antibiotics and crossed our fingers.

 

 

 Hard for me to imagine that two weeks ago that I really didn't know what to think or even do with this sassy miss. It's an expensive lesson in learning some of the subtle signs and symptoms of PHF. Fingers crossed, it is all smooth sailing from here on out in her recovery.

For those seeking more education, please check out AAEP's website on Potomac Horse Fever

I'll do a separate post on the actual organism that causes Potomac Horse Fever.