I'M EXHAUSTED !

I really think horses spend their days thinking of ways to get hurt... at least mine seem to. Yesterday I go out to feed the horses and dogs and cat and find a hurt horse. I was the designated feeder for the weekend since everyone had gone out of town. I go and find two of the horses already up front but the other 4 wouldn't come up. It was windy and the tree they had to pass was blowing and swaying and seemed to spook them..they had been by there a million times before in the wind so I didn't know what the problem could be. I finally get them up to the front (they raced in, so the big bad tree or what ever wouldn't get them) and noticed that my horse Sweetheart had something red on her stomach. As I approach I see blood just dripping from her. She had some how cut a huge V into the skin and a big flap was hanging down. Sorry if this is too graphic ... I'm now in a panic running around trying to find vet wrap and gauze and anything to bandage it up before I call the vet. Do you know how hard it is to try to get a wrap around a horse by yourself with the wind blowing? It's not like you can hold one end and then grab the other end. After a little time I finally got one wrap around her stomach and then was able to secure it with the vet wrap. I started to call our usual vet, but then remembered he's on vacation until the end of the month....great. I didn't have a phone book so I called home and luckily my husband was there and able to get me a number for the back up vet. I called and left a message with the answering service and figured I give him 15 min. to call me back. In the mean time I put all the horses in their respective stalls and tried to comfort Sweetheart. I figured if he didn't call me back I was driving down to his house (about 1/4 mile from us) and just honk the horn until someone came out. This is why we don't call this vet, he never returns calls. Thank goodness he did call back this time. I told him the situation and he came over about 20 min. later. He cleaned her up and gave her a tranquilizer and began stitching her up. He said he recognized the name and that is the only reason he called me back.. how weird is that, if someone calls on the emergency line it's because they need a vet NOW and if he doesn't know you he's not returning your call? He remarked that he'd only been to our place once and he thought it strange since he was just down the street. I told him it was because I had called him on a couple of occasions and never got a call back. He just gave me a funny look, I think he was remembering the message I left on their office answering machine. He had called back, but the following day and I left him a message that if I had waited all this time for his call, I'd have a dead horse. Well, he did get her put back together and now she's all sutured and stapled. He was worried about one section where it was pretty close to puncturing her intestinal wall. That would have been death for sure. She is on watch for the next 6 days to make sure she doesn't colic ( horse stomachache) meaning that there was a tiny hole into her intestine. So far so good. I didn't get home until after 8 last night from getting her all stitched up, we went to dinner and then went back out around 11 to make sure she was still standing. She was and didn't look too bad.. was alert. I went out there this morning again at 6:30 to make sure she was still alive and as well as could be expected. Gave her her meds..15 antibiotic tablets twice a day! plus her pain meds. Fed the rest of the critters and tried to get her to eat, but she wouldn't. I threw some homeopathic pills in there and she probably smelled them and so wouldn't eat..she hates pills. Of course she probably was not very comfortable either. I called the vet again and they actually called back.. 2 for 2 not bad. I told them the site was swollen and she wasn't eating. They said it was nothing to worry about since it was a really serious trauma to that area it was to be expected that it would swell. As for her not eating they said to take her out to some grassy area and see if she eats.. of course she ate the grass and a couple of carrots. I think she just didn't like the food she got. I left with the rest of the horses happily munching hay that I had thrown out. I fenced off the area so they couldn't go out to the field and had to stay up front and keep Sweetheart company since she had to stay in. Told them I'd be back in the afternoon and for them NOT to hurt themselves. I'm leaving in a few min. to go check on everyone and feed them dinner...
Whew! no one got hurt today.. Sweetheart was feeling better and wanted to eat. I'm relieved.
Got everyone fed, Sweetheart medicated and fed and this time she ate just fine.
Made sure everyone was secure and I'm done until tomorrow.. at least I don't have to go out early. For two weeks ... I'll be going out in the morning and giving her her meds and Faith will do it in the evening. This is going to be expenisive in gas... about 37 miles round trip.





_Eileen_