Saturday, January 3, 2009

Oh, my, oh, my....

It doesn't look good. Guess it could be worse. Got up this morning to do my 20 minutes of laps with Elias. And give him his shot. Gulp. Ok. I'm not so worried about the shot thing. I had to give my daughter shots for almost 3 years, every day. But that needle was tiny compared to the needle on the syringe I need to give Elias. Here's the orange square on his neck that target gray spot is located :) I learned a trick from the vet I used to have. She would poke, rather hard, at the spot the shot was going to go. Then, after poking hard two or three times, she would stick the needle in the spot. The horse didn't seem to feel it as much. Guess what - I tried it and it really did work. He didn't even flinch when I pushed that huge needle into his neck. The only thing I was really worried about was getting my finger out of the way in time before the needle went in. Whew. Didn't need to antibiotic myself.

He's looking at me like 'what are you doing?' I'm taking pictures of his leg after I gave him his shot. He looks like he has a moose head in this picture. His head is SO BIG compared to the others in my barn.

So, he's walking a little better but the swelling has not gone down much. But he has been in his stall all night and he doesn't have a lot of room to move around.


So, I will let him go out and have the day in the paddock area. I'll spread the hay and his grain around so he has to move from pile to pile instead of standing in one place all day long. I'll see how he does by tonight.
I went out and checked on Elias before going grocery shopping with hubby. He seemed to be doing better.
When I got home, I went out to walk Elias. This time, we walked 19 circles in 20 minutes. That is up from 15 earlier today! And he was trying to walk ahead of me, which he hasn't done since all this started. And the swelling is down a little.
I washed it with betadine and put some goopey neon yellow stuff on it. One more shot tomorrow and I'm sure I'll hear from the vet on Monday.

Keeping my fingers crossed that we are on the uphill side of all this. Man, oh, man. I'm so ready for this all to be over with. I'm so sorry, big guy. And to top it off, it's so cold. The wind is blowing the snow all around us. Brrr. Wood stove, here I come!

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