Long Road To Recovery for Cody

So, I’ve been really lazy about blogging lately.  Though for the most part, I really just haven’t had much time.  Cody’s knee surgery was three months ago, and……it’s been a long road, getting from there to here (hah, song lyrics, but they fit).  And we have a long road ahead of us.

Outside with Lady day before she went lame.

A couple days after coming home from surgery in November, Cody went three legged lame, refusing to put any weight at all on the leg she had knee surgery on.  And a couple days after that, we found the reason why when one of her incisions started draining nasty bloody yellow stuff like crazy.  Infection had set into one of her incisions.

How or why it got infected, we have no idea.  Infections after this type of surgery are rare, almost unheard of, especially showing up a week after the surgery was actually done.  Not to mention the fact that she was on preventative IV antibiotics both before and after surgery the entire time she was at the MSU vet clinic to prevent any infection from getting in there.  And the day she went three legged lame because the infection was apparently really brewing in there, she still had on the bandage that they sent her home in, per the clinics instructions, so it wasn’t due to leaving a bandage on too long, or being rebandaged in less sterile conditions at home in the barn.  It was just one of those bizarre things.  But then, welcome to my life, if it can happen, it will likely happen to one of my horses.

Resting Cody girl.

But on top of that, joint infections are very bad news to begin with, and the three legged lame part was even worse.  Horses just can’t stand on three legs for very long, before that other leg breaks down, or bows tendons, or laminitis sets in.  Heck, even Barbaro couldn’t beat laminitis, and he had the best vet care available.

But by some miracle, Cody has managed to pull through so far!  They say Thoroughbreds have a lot of heart, and while Cody might be only half Thoroughbred, I’ve seen that “heart” and I’m glad for that Thoroughbred side of her right now.  (And I still say she's part cat, though she’s probably used up another life or two.)  Even my vet keeps saying “she’s amazing, any other horse would have given up long ago”.  I’ve called Cody a pansy in the past, because she’s so thin skinned and sensitive, but I can’t call her that anymore, she is one tough girl!

And thankfully I’ve had an awesome surgeon and regular vet to work with, and they have both been amazing working together on this.  And thankfully Cody has been smart, and taking good care of herself.

View from my bucket while stretching her leg.

So we’ve been through four different antibiotics fighting this.  The first week was three injections a day with two different antibiotics.  I’m getting good with the muscle injections, poor Cody was a pin cushion.  Then we switched over to SMZ tablets twice a day, and a long acting antibiotic injection once a week for five weeks.  She’s still on the SMZ tablets and probably will be for a few more months.  Infection that gets down into the joint and/or bone can apparently take up to six months of antibiotics to get it truly gone.  We’re not taking any chances!

By some miracle, the two joints in her knee above the infected one that she had surgery on managed to stay infection free!!  But the infection did a lot of damage to the joint she had surgery on.  Demineralizing and destroying some of the bone, and destabilizing the joint some.  The x-rays we’ve taken of that joint to track it’s progress are just scary crazy looking!  I’ll try to post them in another blog when I get a chance.  The only good thing to this is, if there was any cartilage left in that joint, the infection has completely destroyed it, basically doing what the surgery did, so if she can pull through this without that other front leg giving out on her, we should get a solid fusion in that joint this time around.

Are you done with my stall yet mom?

I feel just awful that things have gone so wrong, making her recovery all the harder and longer.  But Cody has been such a trooper!!  Not once has she given me any indications that it was too much for her to handle or that she was ready to give up.  And believe me, I’ve been watching closely.  But she’s always been bright eyed and perky.  Friendly and looking for attention or cookies from anyone who stops by her stall.  And thankfully we have a fairly busy barn where I board, so there’s always people and horses to see coming and going or stopping at her stall to visit.  Not once has she really gone off her feed, eating all the grain and hay cubes I can put in front of her.  Pacing herself with her hay so she has hay in front of her to snack on 24/7.  She’s remained in great weight and condition, and even gained some weight, and her coat is just glowing with shine.  She did have some problems with all the bute, when she started getting picky about her grain (though still chowing the haycubes) and started pawing pretty aggressively and having that mildly colicky look.  So we suspect an ulcer having started.  But 8 days of Gastroguard and putting her on Succeed seemed to clear that problem right up in no time.  And since she didn’t seem any more uncomfortable without the bute than she did with the bute, she’s been bute free ever since!

Sweet new no bows!

And so far not a trace of laminitis or tendon strain in that other front leg.  That is truly amazing, unheard of!  I’m so thankful!  And Cody has been very good about taking care of herself, laying down a lot to get off her feet and give her three good legs plenty of rest.  I know it’s usually not good when a horse is laying down a lot, but the vet and surgeon both keep saying “very smart horse!”  And thankfully I have a great farrier to work with too.  We didn’t even try trimming her feet when the infection first set in, she just couldn’t put any weight at all on that leg and there was no getting her other feet up to trim.  By the next trim her feet were getting scary long, but we managed to get three feet trimmed while standing, then waited till she lay down for a rest, and thankfully she let my farrier lean and crawl all over her while she was down to get her good front foot trimmed too.  Hopefully by the next trim, we’ll be able to trim all four feet standing.

Thankfully over the last two months, she has been trying to put some weight on that leg.  Experimentally testing it, stretching it, resting it on the floor flat footed while she eats instead of just resting it on the toe, resting it flat and teetering little bits of weight on it here and there.  We originally wanted to put her knee in a cast or splint, but until she’ll straighten it out and bear some weight on it, we haven’t been able to do either one. 

OMG, is that snow?!?!

But over the last two weeks I’ve seen some definite improvements.  Before if she walked forward she would hunch her back feet as far forward as she could get them, then hurry up and step forward with her good front foot as fast as she could, putting weight on her injured leg for the shortest amount of time possible and slamming her good front foot down hard in her race to step it forward and get off her injured leg.  Not a good idea!  So when I did have to move her in and out of her stall, we did it in reverse.  And eventually started backing up and down the barn aisle a time or two to encourage her to use that injured leg some, without slamming her good front leg around.  By backing up she could move her back feet back, then either brace herself on her hind end and slide both front feet back at the same time (which helped file her feet a bit on the cement floor), or eventually shuffle her front feet back in baby steps that still made her but some weight on her injured leg, but not for too long, and saved wear and tear on her good leg in the process.  So we got pretty good at going places in reverse.

First walk outside in 3 months!

But two weeks ago, I noticed a change.  She’s still not truly standing on it yet. And while she still likes to “put the parking brake on” a lot while she’s standing around, bending her knee and resting the toe, I have noticed her putting the injured leg down flat footed more often both in and out of her stall and putting some weight on it while she’s eating and standing around.  And from the looks of her stall, she seems to be lying down a little less lately.  But she can also walk forward!  She doesn’t have to scrunch her back end up way under herself before she takes a step, and she can put weight on the injured leg a bit longer now in order to step forward with her good foot much more gently and no longer really slamming it around!  It’s a small victory, but after three months of what seemed like little to no improvement, I’ll take it!  So our short trips up and down the barn aisle lately have been in drive instead of reverse!  And we’ve even made it outside on to the driveway a couple of times to go for a short walk out there, or go to a patch of grass to graze, or just to get out of the barn!  Chain over her nose though just to be safe!  Three months in a stall makes her a little bouncy outside, and we don’t need her doing anything stupid!!

So we still have a long road ahead of us, and probably another couple months of stall rest yet.  With the weird weather and the deep mud/frozen rut pastures, I don’t dare put her out any time soon, and not until she’s a whole lot more sure footed anyway!  Here’s keeping my fingers crossed that things continue in the right direction!

Fat and happy Lady!

So how’s Lady?  She’s doing well.  Fat, and happy, and very out of shape!  She’s pretty much been on “vacation” all winter.  Ride?  I’d love to, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.  With working full time, and heading down to the barn twice a day, morning and night, to feed the girls, and medicate Cody, and clean Cody’s stall, and try to walk Cody a little bit, and redo three standing wraps and a knee bandage every other day or so, riding just isn’t in the picture right now.  But that’s ok.  Lady isn’t really a fan of arena work anyway, and the hard indoor arena surface limits what she can do because of her arthritis.  So Lady can enjoy being lazy for a while yet, then hopefully by the time the weather is nice, Cody will be walking better, and Lady can go back to work helping me pony Cody for her walks.

Last Ride

It was a beautiful day out today, so Lady, Cody, and I took our last trail ride together.  At least for a while anyway.  Life's been kind of crazy lately, and I haven't ridden in probably a month, but Lady is such a trooper, you wouldn't really know she's had a month off.  And Cody seemed to enjoy getting out to pony along with us, though she was rather full of beans.  She hasn't been out on the trails in a while and mixed with the crisp wind, she was practicing her little Cody explosion airs above the ground every now and then.  It's nice to see some spunk, but she was usually a little ouch for a couple of strides after that.

So I say last ride, because it's probably the last time the three of us will trail ride together this year.  The weather is getting yucky, the days are short, and Cody's knee surgery on Tuesday is going to land her out of commission for the winter.  Though I'm sure Lady will be pulling lead horse duty often over the next few months to help hand walk Cody, but most likely in the arena on good footing while Cody's knee heals up.  And here's hoping by next summer I'll be riding Cody and ponying Lady!

On the eye front, Cody's eye just didn't get any better over the weekend, and by Tuesday I noticed a small spot in the middle of it.  So Dr. Collier came out Wednesday afternoon to check it out, and Cody's done a bit of a number on it.  I don't recall seeing the spot over the weekend, so she thinks she might have scratched it rummaging through the burrs and weeds (which are now all successfully cut out of the girls pasture as of last Sunday), then proceeded to itch and dig it, and made it horse.  But she's got a nice little round ulcer dug into the cornea of her eye.  So new eye ointment and plenty of bute and a fly mask till things heal.  Poor girl can't win. And it obviously hurts really bad, because trying to medicate that eye is a battle, but I think it might finally be getting a little better, or at least less ouchie, because she's actually been really good about letting me put the meds in her eye last night and again today.  So here's hoping that heals up quick and easy.

July 2011

Step Back In Time

So this past weekend, I took a step back in time.....in a couple of ways......  Back to the Renaissance, and back to when I could still ride my Cody girl.....  Well, in pictures anyway......

 

I started making this dress a few years ago.  I picked out the fabrics specifically because the colors would go so well with Cody's beautiful red dun coat.  And I was going to get pictures riding Cody in it when it was done!

I had a few pictures taken on Cody in it a couple years ago, but it was still very much a work in progress at the time.  It was wearable, that was about it.  The bodice didn't come out right and needed to be remade, sleeves weren't done yet, beadwork was only half done, still needed to make the partlet and the caul for my hair.  So we had work in progress pictures, but I wanted pictures on Cody with the finished product.

And finally this summer, just in time for the festival season, I sewed on the last of the beadwork, tied on the bejeweled sleeves, put everything together, and after literally hours upon hours of sewing and hand beading, declared my first court gown officially complete!

And I can no longer ride my Cody girl........

Cody's knee never completely fused after her surgery like it should have.  She's pasture sound, but not rideable sound.  At least not yet......  After going back to see the surgeon and find out our options, I think we're going to try the surgery again.  Dr. Caron has never had one of these fail before, unfortunately Cody had to be the first.  But she is in great health and of sound body, the rest of her joints are fine, if we can just get the rest of that knee joint to fuse, she should be sound enough to ride again.  As soon as finances allow, we'll try the surgery again (thankfully at a reduced cost).  Probably end of this month, or first of next month. 

So here I am with my dress finally done, and I can't ride my girl.  Yes, I have sweet Lady (and I did get some pictures riding her in the dress as well and will post some when I get them from the photographer), but this dress was made for Cody.

I finally decided I was getting on my girl, even if only for a few minutes, and even if all we did was just stand there.  I wasn't sure how it would go, she hasn't had anyone or even a saddle on her back in a year and a half since she first got hurt.  And here I am climbing on her back in 10+ yards and several pounds of court gown.  Maybe that was wrong of me, but she showed no signs of concern as I carefully climbed on her back off the mounting block.  She honestly could have cared less. 

She even willingly walked off on her own without my asking and was happy to walk around, even if just slow and easy.  And she hasn't forgotten a thing.  She collected up so nice and light in the bridle.  Even did some leg yield and side passing, remembered how to turn on the haunches and forehand with light aids.  She was an absolute angel.  I nearly cried.  Heck, I am crying right now.  I miss riding her so much!

Thank you Cody girl!  It might have only been a 15 minute ride, but it was worth every second of it!  You have no idea how much you made my day! 

And how much I love that beautifully expressive face of yours.  A noble steed indeed, befitting of the Duchess stature of that dress.

  

Thanks big girl!  I needed that.

And if all goes well, we'll do this again in the spring....in more appropriate riding gear, out on the trails, with Lady as the pony and you as my mount.  I hope and pray.

Yes, you can have some grass now!  You deserve it beautiful!

All photos (c) New Age Duchess Designs

Cody's Turn

While Lady's had kind of a crazy summer with sunburn and sweet itch, Cody's hasn't been much better either. Things have been pretty up and down with her knee. I'm not entirely sure how successful I would call her knee surgery. She's definitely not rideable sound, and at this point, I have my doubts that she ever will be. But I'm at least hoping for pasture sound, which she seems to be lately, though I'm worried how things will be once cold weather begins to set in, will she be too uncomfortable to make it through winter? I don't know.

At MSU after surgery in December

But this summer she's had her ups and downs. Thankfully more ups as far as lameness than downs. She was hand walking 30 or 40 minutes 3 or 4 days a week ponying out on the trails with Lady and I without much trouble. Once she got warmed up, she seemed to move along pretty well. But Mother Nature kind of spoiled that with a long stretch of 90+ degrees with 100+ heat index. I didn't want to move much in that, let alone make my horses go for a walk in the hot sun. So cool hose downs and maybe a short walk were pretty much the name of the game. Lately, the skeeters will carry you away if you stray too far from the barn.  But even without all the walking, Cody seemed to do ok on her knee. She had a weird week at one point where she was really sore, then seemed to bounce back from it.

A couple weeks ago she came galloping and bucking full speed all the way across the pasture trying to escape one of those B-52 Bomber flies. The last time she pulled a galloping stunt like that this spring, she was three legged lame for days, it took her a week to get back to where she had been as far as lameness. She was so worried about the fly attacking her and trying to get away from it, I wasn't sure if she remembered the gate was coming up fast, let alone be able to stop in time, I'm just picturing the wreck about to happen. This is Cody after all, and "disaster" seems to be her middle name. And sure enough, her head pops up, her ears fly forward, and that look of "Oh sh*t!" crosses her face as she realizes with the fence on one side and Lady galloping along on the other side, there's no where to go but straight into the gate. Somehow she managed to execute a sliding stop that would have been the envy of any reining horse and brought new meaning to the term "draggin' ass", and only bumped her nose on the gate. And sure enough, she was three legged lame from her antics (but she did get away from that fly and managed not to crash). Oh Cody. But thankfully she seemed to walk it off after a few steps, and an hour later, was pretty much back to her "normal" level of lameness. So that there is progress. Small victories.

She is due for x-rays again. The last ones were back in April I believe. But instead of having my regular vet do the x-rays again, I decided to take her back to MSU to see the surgeon this time. Since Cody seems to be the first successful failure of this surgery, I really wanted Dr. Caron to see her again and get his thoughts, what went wrong, has the joint healed like it should have, see if maybe there's something more than just the knee adding to her lameness, what more can I do for her to try to keep her as comfortable as possible to be a retired pasture pet, especially with cold weather a few months away. Thankfully I do have options still to try, such as daily bute or a different devil's claw and yucca supplement, joint injections to the other two joints in that knee, Adequan or Legend injections, maybe one of the magnetic/ceramic knee wraps, she'd probably benefit from seeing a chiropractor.

So she was supposed to go in to MSU on Tuesday this week, I couldn't wait to see new x-rays and see what Dr. Caron thought. Especially since last week, she started getting really lame again. Good thing she's going to MSU on Tuesday. It kept getting worse, by Saturday she was three legged lame, it took her forever to walk across the pasture to come in for dinner. I cleaned out her foot, and that seemed fine, no rocks or anything stuck in there. I couldn't find any heat or swelling in her knee, but she wanted no part of walking on it. I was just sick and heart broken, her knee was giving out, just like Wayne's did. I went home in tears. Sunday she was marginally better, at least walking on it, but still horribly lame.

But when I went to pick up her foot to clean it out, I discovered a tiny weeping sore at the front of her foot on the coronet band! She blew out an abscess! No wonder she'd been so lame lately! I feel awful, and feel like an idiot, I never even thought to check for an abscess (yes, I clean and handle her feet daily, but I always have gloves on about 90% of the time that I'm handling my horses since a few years ago my body decided it was allergic to horse dander, so I totally missed the heat in her foot)! I just assumed it was her knee getting worse. But I have never been so happy in my life to have a horse with an abscess. An abscess is far more treatable than a knee giving out. And after a good cleaning and soaking, sure enough, there was the tiny pinhead sized black hole in her whiteline on the bottom of her foot where everything started. Poor girl!

This is the first abscess I've had to deal with on one of my own horses. So I called my farrier, because I know he's really good with abscesses, there are some vets that call him to come and dig out abscesses for them. Since it had already blown out the coronet band, he probably didn't need to come dig this one out, at this point it should drain itself pretty well, so soak it twice a day to help draw everything out and call him in 2 days with a progress report, or sooner if it starts building heat again or she goes dead lame again and he'll come right down. And blow out an abscess she did. What started out as a tiny hole in her coronet band about as big around as the end of my little finger turned into about an inch and a half weeping sore by Monday night. Ouch!

But so far so good soaking twice a day. At least it's not oozing any more, still pretty angry looking, but not draining. And she's walking better, but still a little ouchy, but I'm not sure if it's because of the foot, or the knee, or both, with the knee problem added in the mix, it's hard to tell. And thankfully in a better mood the last few days, Monday night while crouching down to work on that foot, I felt the careful warning scrape of teeth across the top of my ballcap letting me know how she felt about the situation, along with several dirty looks. Yesterday the heat was finally gone in her hoof wall, but still some heat right at the coronet band, so my farrier said soak her a couple more days till the heat was gone there too to make sure we get rid of any infection. I also took pictures of it and emailed them to him. He said it looked like your typical abscess and looked to be starting to heal fine, just keep an eye on it and keep him posted.  Tonight the heat in the coronet band was finally gone.

So it's been a long week. Every morning has pretty much gone something like this (and repeated every evening):

• 5:30 am - crawl out of bed
• 5:45 am - stumble to truck, hot water and breakfast in hand
• 5:47 am - eat breakfast on way to barn
• 5:52 am - arrive at barn
• 5:53 am - sweet barn kitty demands to be fed
• 5:54 am - furkids demand to be fed, Cody's pawing, Lady's weaving
• 5:55 am - both nickering at me "Feed the starving ponies!"
• 5:56 am - breakfast shortly, hold your horses!
• 6:00 am - one foot soaking

Needless to say, I am thoroughly exhausted after this week, and about to go fall in bed for the night!
 
As for the MSU knee checkup, well, we rescheduled. There's no point in taking her in for a knee checkup if she's lame on that foot from an abscess. So we'll get her foot healed up, and then hopefully we can get a better idea of where she's at with her knee, or if there's something else in the foot that's adding to the problem. 

So the MSU trip will be in two weeks. And the furkids and I will keep trudging our way through this crazy summer.

Happy barn kitty!

Spring in Pictures

Been having a hard time coming up with much to post lately, so we'll try this. 

Our spring in pictures.

Last we left off, Lady had gotten new jammies.  Well, Cody got new jammies too, a turnout sheet to match Lady's!

They look so cute together!  And yes, they are back together!  Cody was on individual turnout for most of the winter from her knee surgery, and still is on "individual turnout" but turned out with just Lady.  It's SO nice having them together again, and I think Cody is happy to have a friend back, and Lady having less grass to pig out on and less horses to push her around is a plus for her arthritis.

When there's not enough horses for everyone to ride, Lady's a champ to give a friend's daughter a lift for a trail ride.

Fun new polo wraps!

I see those summer coats peaking through!



Pretty foggy morning, but seriously Michigan?  Turnout sheets on frozen ponies toward the end of May?

Cody's up to 30 minutes of hand walking....but who wants to hand walk a horse for 30 minutes.  Ok, yes, the exercise is good for me, but it gets old quick.  So, we pony several days a week, sometimes in the arena, sometimes on the trails!  I get to ride, Lady get a light workout to keep her joints moving, and Cody gets her hand walking in!

And yes, more crazy new polo wraps!  They're addictive!  Cody's pretty in plaid, and Lady's ready for the races in her checkered flag......ok, so her arthritis says absolutely not, but they're still cute!

And then there's little Pistol.  Pistolero is a 4 year old Paso Fino gelding that belongs to a fellow boarder, who's been kind enough to let me work with him a few days a week, with ground work and riding, so I have a horse without "soundness limitations" to enjoy and practice my Downunder Horsemanship with, and little Pistol gets some extra work in to help with his training since he's still a bit green.  And he is a little guy!  Slightly taller than my Wayne was, but definitely not over 14 hands, and much finer in build.  But he's been fun to work with so far.

So, there's our spring this year.