So for the last 5 days I've been up at my trainers place farm sitting for her and her boyfriend while they went to the beach. I took Boo and Reily up there with me so I could ride them the whole time and utilize her wonderful sand arena to get Reily ready for his show last Saturday. I got up there Wednesday night and they left Thursday morning. While they were gone I was taking care of all the animals and also riding several of her horses for her.
Wouldn't you know it, while I was riding the second horse for the day I saw several of her horses in an adjacent pasture come running out of the shade of the woods and it looked like they were just playing and I didn't think much of it. After finish the horse I was on I took care of him and headed out to his pasture, which happens to be the same one where the horses were running earlier. I had brought out the halter for the next horse, Cannon, who is this massive 18+ hand warmblood (draft/TB cross) and coincidentally who I was planning to work next. But when I got out there Cannon was still acting like a maniac and when he finally got close to me and the other horses I saw why and my heart started beating about a million miles an hour... a 2 foot long piece of old barbed wire was wrapped around his right hind leg. In addition there was one pesky horse fly buzzing around and on the entire farm there is only one horse who absolutely loses it's mind over flies, and of course that's Cannon. I manage to get his halter on but with his butt going bonkers about the horse fly there was no way I could get the barbed wire. In a stroke of luck he was stomping and kicking so much that he actually untangled himself and the wire fell off. I kicked it to the fence so none of the other horses could do anything stupid and tried to keep Cannon under control enough to get him back to the barn. Now imagine me, all of 5'3" trying to hold a frantic 18+ hand 1,250 lb horse walking across 2 fields back to the barn being chased by a killer horse fly. I can't jump high to save my life, but my feet grew springs and somehow I managed to jump up high enough to stun that horse fly and finally get Cannon under control.
I knew it was bad but I couldn't really evaluate it until I got him up to the barn and see how extensive the damage was. Once I got him up I looked all over his legs and he had several minor scrapes and cuts on both hind legs but on his right hind he had a good 3 inch gash straight through the skin to the tendon. I called Pat right away and she called the vet and explained the situation to them and told them it was an emergency. After a couple of hours they got there and stitched him up and said it wasn't good, but it wasn't the worst they'd ever had. We decided to leave him on the farm but if at any point it started to look like something I couldn't or didn't feel comfortable handling I'd haul him up to the VT vet school and they'd take over his care. He was on a ridiculously large amount of antibiotics 2x/day, I had to change his dressings 1x/day cold hosing for 20 minutes each time then re-wrapping him, he could be hand grazed a couple times a day but only enough to stretch his legs not to the point of exercise, and otherwise he was confined to stall rest. I was glad that Pat trusted me enough to take care of him, but it was a less than ideal situation.
Well if I thought that was bad, things were about to get much, much worse. My trainer and her boyfriend got home late Sunday night and on Monday morning I was supposed to go with Pat to look at a pony several hours away. We were planning to leave around 9, but my phone rang at 7 and it was my boyfriend. Now, he had been taking care of Scotty and Napoleon for me while I was gone and you always worry when someone taking care of your animals has to call. I picked up the phone and by his tone of voice I immediately knew something was wrong. He said, "Hey, I was just feeding Scotty and he's fine, but I'm kinda worried about Napoleon"... instant panic mode
"What do you mean, what's he doing?!"
"Well he's just coughing a lot. I don't know he doesn't seem normal." This is coming from a boy who knows next to nothing about horses so my mind and heart are racing.
"Coughing how, explain it to me"
"I don't know, just coughing and drooling a lot and there's some funky stuff coming out of his nose."
"SHIT!!!! It sounds like he's choking!!! Did he eat anything?!"
"I didn't feed him anything, but there's all these piles of goo or drool or something"
I had already jumped out of bed and was literally throwing everything into my bag. We hung up and I was running down the stairs and telling Pat I had to leave while I was flying out the door. They helped me get everything in my truck and load the horses right away. I called my vet and told her I had to get her to go to the house immediately but she said I had to find someone to hold him because she couldn't tube him by herself. I had to call the neighbors who, thankfully, are home most of the time and they agreed to help hold him. Because I was driving the truck and trailer I knew it would take me at least an hour to get home.
When I got home I just parked the truck and left Boo and Reily on for the time being to go check Napoleon. I was literally in tears. She had him tubed but wasn't getting anything out. She said she was hitting the blockage a few inches from his stomach so it was far down but definitely stuck. He looked so broken, he was sweaty and exhausted and completely lethargic. She pulled the tube back out and said to give him a few minutes. I just sat there holding his head and crying and apologizing to him. My vet said she didn't feel comfortable tubing him again because she'd done it 4 times but wasn't making any progress and the last time she got blood back from this esophagus. She said she was using the softest tube she had but was afraid that if it was bleeding, tubing him again might cause it to rupture and then we'd lose him for sure. I don't have the money to spend right now but losing Napoleon is NOT an option. He's not that old yet and I've had him for 20 years, I love this little pony more than anything else in the world. She called Tech and got a quote on doing a scope and ultrasound, it would start at $250 and I'd have to decide how far to take it from there. I couldn't not take him. So we grabbed the big horses off the trailer, threw them in the field took out all the hay and put Napoleon in the trailer and I turned around and got straight back on the road heading to Blacksburg. Needless to say, if anyone looked at me on the road that day I'm sure they would have thought I was a suicide case. I cried the entire way to Blacksburg.
THANK GOD, when we got there and they got the scope down his throat they found that whatever the reason (maybe he finally relaxed enough in the trailer to pass it the rest of the way down, maybe he finally coughed it loose, there's no telling) the blockage was gone. They also found and took pictures of the laceration that was causing the blood in the tube. They did the ultra sound as well and found a bit more fluid then normal (for his age some fluid is normal) so it was apparent he had aspirated some as well. With the scope, ultrasound, blood work, floating for his teeth, and meds (almost $200 alone!!) I walked away with a $700 vet bill but my treasured pony was in one piece and would live to be fuzzy for another day. It was more than worth it.
Poor little Napoleon is on 4 weeks (holy shit!) of stall rest plus 2 antibiotics, 1 anti-inflammatory, 1 pain killer, 1 dental rinse and a limited diet for at least the next 2 weeks. So in a way I'm happy that I'm jobless right now, despite the vet bill that happened at arguably the worst time possible. He has to get medications and feedings every 4-6 hours a day for the next 14 days so I'm very, very glad I'll be home to take the best possible care of him.
However, my brother's wedding is this coming weekend... horses have the worst timing ever. Thank goodness for good friends!
