angelish
Well-Known Member
I thought those of you who were originally following this thread might like an update on how George is getting on. He has been home for 6 months now and we've had a few bumps in the road but for the most part he has been doing well.
When I last updated you all we were having big issues with George's weight. He had lost a lot of weight because we were struggling to get his diet right (after his op he just can't tolerate hay and it makes him colic so we had to find alternatives and all increases in portion size or changes in diet had to be made so incredibly slowly) and he looked like a picture from a horse charity leaflet. I was terrified that he wouldn't pick up and we would basically have watched him starve to death. We had a great team of dieticians and vets on hand though and the good news is he really turned a corner and once the corner was turned he put the weight on again VERY quickly. Horses that have had as much gut removed as he has often tend to stay very skinny and it's a real struggle to keep weight on them. Turns out George doesn't like to play by the rules and is now fat. To the point where we're talking to the dietician again about how to help him lose a little weight (but not too much) safely. I think it's been a real learning curve for everyone, dietician and vets included, as there are very few horses who come home after being as sick as he has been and even fewer who then get tubby whilst not being able to eat a normal diet and having drastically less gut than nature intended.
His hernia on the operation site is huge and scary to look at but after talking to his surgical team we've decided not to do anything about it. It seems that his stomach muscles along the whole length of his incision failed to knit together so the hernia is about 30cm long. It doesn't bother him in the slightest (although it really bothers me) and to fix it would require another operation which may work or may cause him more problems. The vets have said that such big hernias rarely cause a clinical problem (although there is the possibility it may strangulate which would unfortunately mean he needed to be PTS) and we've decided that he's been through enough so just to leave it be.
His knee still blows up huge every now and then...mostly after he's gone for too much of a run around in the field! We haven't got to the bottom of what the problem is although it does seem to have happened during his second op. He is sound on it 95% of the time and given that we made the decision to retire him we are leaving this be too.
The final curve ball that he's thrown at us is that he went massively itchy and scabby all over out of nowhere and then went bald where the scabs were. We haven't properly managed to get to the bottom of this one either. The vet gave him steroids, took bloods and took some biopsies but we're not sure whether it's an allergy (if so, we don't know what do) or an auto-immune thing. He's still quite itchy but the scabbiness has subsided and hair is starting to grow back on the bald patches...in a different colour to before which has us all mystified!
It's been a rollercoaster of a 6 months (7 if you include his time in horspital). His kind of colic has the highest risk of recurrence, his hernia could strangulate, his diet could go pear shaped and he does now throw some totally random curveballs into the mix too, so he's definitely living on borrowed time. However, I feel incredibly lucky to have had him for this extra time as his odds of leaving horspital alive were 25%. He is spoilt rotten (I don't feel I can tell him off for anything now!) and is enjoying his retirement mooching around, eating too much and getting fussed. Massive thanks have to go to my yardowner, the vet teams and dieticians who have made it possible.
aww ive gone all misty eyed and that doesn't happen often
really pleased he is still doing well even if only its a chance to spoil him in his retirement , he sounds like a real battler , i really didn't think he'd make it out the hospital !
well done again and best wishes to you and george
