Rose Folly
Well-Known Member
My much loved cob mare went down with a sudden unexplained attack of laminitis 10 days ago. She had last had one 3 years ago. However she rallied superbly, but celebrated her recovery by jumping our over her slip-railed box 3 times within 24 hours. The day after, she started to go downhill. she rested her near fore all the time, could only heave herself around the box, and was, not unnaturally, totally miserable. Her shoes were taken off, pads fitted, and then silicone ? was sprayed into her crevices at a later date. None of it helped. The vet came back today.
This morning she had a dreadful turn for the worse. She was lying down, to all intents and purposes had foundered, had dull half-closed eyes and was a shadow of her normal ebullient self. I texted the vet, who was coming to do X-rays, and asked her to be sure to carry the wherewithal to put her down if, as we all thought, the pedal bone had shifted. I just couldn't stand watching her suffer any more.
Two vets came, sedated her, nerve-blocked her poor near fore, and with great difficulty we heaved her onto her feet for the X-ray. I was on the verge of saying "just leave her lying and put her out of her suffering" - but didn't. The vets had just taken the X-rays and were explaining to me that so far nothing looked amiss when one of them said "I think some of your worries are over" - and there was pus oozing out over the X-ray board. A huge abscess in her foot had burst thanks to her putting weight on the foot for the first time in well over a week.
Within half an hour she was poultice, the other front foot support-padded, and 7 hours on she is a different girl. As my lovely livery - a head veterinary nurse herself - put it "We may not be out of the trees but we're certainly out of the wood".
The one clue to all this was that, despite the efforts to balance her foot to keep her out of discomfort, all the week she had been resting on the TOE of the foot. If - and please god it doesn't - ever happen again I will get the vet back much sooner to test for an abscess. But at the time they could get no pain response which would suggest an abscess.
So now I feel a total drama queen - but such a happy one!
This morning she had a dreadful turn for the worse. She was lying down, to all intents and purposes had foundered, had dull half-closed eyes and was a shadow of her normal ebullient self. I texted the vet, who was coming to do X-rays, and asked her to be sure to carry the wherewithal to put her down if, as we all thought, the pedal bone had shifted. I just couldn't stand watching her suffer any more.
Two vets came, sedated her, nerve-blocked her poor near fore, and with great difficulty we heaved her onto her feet for the X-ray. I was on the verge of saying "just leave her lying and put her out of her suffering" - but didn't. The vets had just taken the X-rays and were explaining to me that so far nothing looked amiss when one of them said "I think some of your worries are over" - and there was pus oozing out over the X-ray board. A huge abscess in her foot had burst thanks to her putting weight on the foot for the first time in well over a week.
Within half an hour she was poultice, the other front foot support-padded, and 7 hours on she is a different girl. As my lovely livery - a head veterinary nurse herself - put it "We may not be out of the trees but we're certainly out of the wood".
The one clue to all this was that, despite the efforts to balance her foot to keep her out of discomfort, all the week she had been resting on the TOE of the foot. If - and please god it doesn't - ever happen again I will get the vet back much sooner to test for an abscess. But at the time they could get no pain response which would suggest an abscess.
So now I feel a total drama queen - but such a happy one!
