Please keep your fingers crossed - colic surgery

So glad he's still fighting with you, agree with Mulledwhine, you're both doing amazingly well.

Thanks for the update and I hope he continues to improve :) x
 
Thank you for taking the time to update us. I often wonder how George is doing. It is good to learn that he remains cheerful despite the difficulties. You are obviously doing a tremendous job and should be proud that what the vets are learning through George could also help other horses in the future.
 
wow just read through the entire thread! what an amazing horse! George is a real fighter, so pleased to hear he's doing better!
Keep us all updated
 
George has been home for nearly 10 weeks now and I thought his followers might like a Christmas update on how he's doing. He has been putting weight on really well and now looks like just a thin horse with poor muscle rather than a charity poster. I used to take a sharp intake of breath when I took his rugs off as he looked so awful, but this has stopped now :)! We had to get a bigger sized belly band from the vet last week!

Unfortunately his stomach muscles haven't knitted back together properly (probably due to the infection he got in his incision site) and he developed a 20cm long hernia a few weeks back which was an upsetting blow as things had been going so well. There is a possibility it could strangulate and kill more gut, which unfortunately would be the end, but the vet has tried to reassure me that hernias like his are usually a cosmetic problem and rarely cause a clinical problem. We are putting the belly band on him when he is in the field and at night to try to stop the hernia getting any worse (usually the belly band would have come off completely at week 8), but the hernia doesn't hurt or bother him at all and it definitely upsets me more than it does him.

His fat knee is STILL fat but not quite as bad as it has been now that he is going out in the field for longer periods. He is not lame on it unless he tries to canter, which he shouldn't really be doing anyway, so we are just continuing to keep an eye on this for now.

In short, George is now retired, largely due to the hernia issue. The vet did say that he might be able to cope with a potter of a hack at some point in the future but I have no desire to push him and I'm not that fussed about not being able to ride him. I feel incredibly lucky to have had these extra 3 months with him and whilst the trauma has aged him and he is generally quite tatty round the edges now, he is happy, not in pain and has a good quality of life. He gets to go out in the field and roll in the muddiest spot he can find, spends his days eating and has a shine back on his coat.

I took these photos in the sunshine last weekend and, whether he has just one more day or many more years ahead of him, the whole nightmare was worth it to see him just being a horse agaiin!

Merry Christmas everyone from me and George.

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Such a lovely update and great to see gorgeous George in the field. Merry Christmas and I hope 2013 brings more positive developments for him and less stress for you! :D
 
aww well done you and george :D
i was wondering how he was doing really pleased he made it

there is a horse (15yr old) on my yard that went through colic surgery in nov last year and he has a massive hernia along his scar line ,his owner is erm :o laid back about it and he has been jumping and everything and he has been fine ,he maybe shouldn't be doing that much work and i think they are very deffinatly pushing there luck but it hasn't done him any harm ,he was as you say tatty for a while but he is now a picture of health and has his shine/sparkle back so george may well sparkle again in time :)
 
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.
 
What a challenging time for you and George, so pleased to hear he's made such good progress. I really admire people's dedication to their animals, it takes so much thought, care and determination to bring them through something like that...I hope his recovery continues to go well and that you are both enjoying some spring sunshine, you certainly derserve it!! :)
 
Thank you for the update, it's great to hear that he is doing well and is a happy boy. You have had so much worry and it's still ongoing, I really admire your dedication and devotion to George and I wish you both a quiet and peaceful summer.
 
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