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!

Fall off the earth?

Did I fall off the earth?  No, just haven't had much positive or fun to report lately.  I started this blog to share the fun I have with my horses, past and present, but it seems like things have spiraled toward the negative all too often lately, and a blog that's all negative is just depressing.  And the past still hurts sometimes.  I miss my Wayne something awful still.

But how are the girls doing?  So so.....  (if you want to skip to the fun stuff, head down to the pictures at the bottom, otherwise welcome to my horse life)

Cody's knee surgery has been anything but successful so far.  We hit the 3 month mark on March 2nd and she's still dead lame.  We've past the 3 1/2 month mark, and last Saturday she refused to put any weight on it.  She's a little better now, but still not as good as she was, and even then she was anything but sound. 

The vet came out Feb 1st and x-rayed her knee and sent them to the surgeon at MSU.  He said the x-rays looked good, but behind schedule as far as healing.  So we decided to give her till mid April or so and re-x-ray and re-evaluate, and see where we're at, see if it looks like things are healing or not.  Dr. Caron says he's never had one of these surgeries not work, but I'm worried sick Cody's going to be the first and I'm going to end up losing her too. 

But I'm trying to keep my spirits up.  She's had a lot of things going against her over these 3 1/2 months, that's for sure.  This ridiculous weather, insane mud, rough frozen ground, deep snow, ice, ice, and more mud and snow, lack of sufficient bedding to pad the front of her stall, among other things.  She's also the oldest horse he's ever done this surgery on, going on 17 this year.  And then there's Cody's momentary lapses of reason from time to time.  I had to quit hand walking her in the indoor arena, because every time we did she wanted to roll first thing, then would explode in a bucking fit as she got up and could hardly walk after that, so hand walking has to be done on the driveway....when it's not insane mud or sheer ice.  And I hear she was trying to canter in her pasture the other day.

So we're taking things day by day and we'll see what happens.  Working on getting her weaned out of standing wraps right now, and hopefully out of a knee wrap soon.  Trying to keep my chin up, but I worry.  My luck seems to be in the toilet lately.  Having just lost Wayne those few months ago, I'll be all the more heartbroken if I lose her too, and questioning my place in the horse world.  How can something I love so much just go so completely wrong over the past year.

Lady, she's doing ok.  She started having some lameness issues in December (on top of some sudden major diarrhea issues that seems to have been encysted small strongyles and sand related, resulting in Panacur Power Pacs and Sand Clear for both the girls), so I gave her several weeks off, then slowly started working her on the lunge line, mostly at the walk with a little bit of trot to try to get her back into shape, but even doing that a few days a week and her lameness came back.  Not real noticeable, but something just wasn't right.  So I certainly didn't want to ride her.  I haven't been on the back of a horse in three months.  I think this is the longest I have ever gone without riding since I first bought Wayne back in 2002.  A little depressing.

But I did get very lucky, since the vet student that used to board with us (and who's wife used to use Lady for riding lessons one day a week), got Lady into MSU for me for the musculoskeletal rotation he was on.  That was pretty exciting!  Lady went up to MSU for the day, and Jesse and the rest of the students in his group went over her from head to toe.  Basically a full lameness exam.  Flexion tests, movement on straight lines and circles on hard and soft surfaces, nerve blocks to pin point painful spots, and about 50 x-rays of her knees, hocks, and front feet, and consultation with the two vets overseeing the students.  And since it was a learning experience for the students, I didn't have to pay a dime for any of it!!! 

What did we learn?  She has some pretty good arthritis in her left knee that was causing the lameness I was seeing.  So I'm now three for three on screwed up left knees.  At least Lady's most likely isn't from getting kicked in the knee like Wayne and Cody, it's probably just wear and tear, but still, what are the odds?  Apparently I have no luck when it comes to knees.  Makes me scared to even think about ever own another horse someday, at least not while I'm still having to board anyway.

So when our vet came out a couple weeks ago to do vaccines, we injected Lady's knee to see if that would make her a little more comfortable.  It seems to have helped, but then I haven't done much with her lately, either haven't had the time with doctoring Cody, or this rotten weather has left me unenthused about doing much of anything.  I did work her on the lunge line for a bit on Sunday, but that didn't go as well as I would have liked.  My intention was just to walk and a little trot, but Lady had her barrel horse brain on and was a complete dork ripping around at the canter and cross canter, head tossing and galloping a couple times for a good 10 minutes before she finally settled down to her normal self.  She looked and was moving great!!!  But was very sore the next day.  Maybe this weekend I'll get her back out and try again.

Thankfully her hock arthritis doesn't look any worse now than it did from the x-rays taken a year ago of her hocks.  For now, I skipped injecting her hocks, since last summer she did pretty good on them, and if old man winter would just GO AWAY, I think that would be a big help too.  But we'll see.  She'll be 17 this year too, and from the history we've been able to piece together of her life before I got her, she seems to have been used pretty hard at a young age, so I guess it's to be expected. 

But hopefully I can at least keep Lady trail sound.  And pray that I can get Cody healed up and sound again.  These last 5 months have been really tough.....

So to keep this from being a completely depressing blog entry, some pictures of what the girls have been up to lately......

Cody gets some love tonight from sweet Miles (be sure to check him out at Miles On Miles):

Thoroughbred Kisses

Lady finally got some shipping boots of her very own, instead of always having to wear Wayne's pony shipping boots, which really were way too small for her!  And she got to try them out on her trip to MSU!



Cody is determined there is grass under that snow somewhere if she just digs far enough!

The girls discover the new mirrors in the indoor arena!  Lady was a little puzzled....then curious.....then didn't really care, she took it in true Lady form.  She's so darn cute!

Hey, that looks like me?!?!

Who's that pretty Lady?

Cody was a bit more dramatic.  Typical of Cody.  She did the stop dead and whip the head around with a bug eyed stare, then had to go check herself out.

Whoa, who the heck is that?!?!?!

Mirror mirror on the wall.....

Cody's Knee X-rays

So the vet student that used to board with us got me copies of Cody's knee x-rays from her two visits to MSU.  These are all before surgery.  Can't wait to see x-rays in March after it's healed and fully fused!

How's she doing?  So, so.  She has good days and bad days.  It is a three month healing process, as that is on average how long it takes for a broken bone to heal, and basically her surgery destroyed the cartilage between the top and bottom bones of the injured joint so the two bones will now fuse themselves together into one.  Better explanation can be found here.

It's been a month now, but Dr. Caron warned me that I won't see much improvement in lameness for 2 to 2 1/2 months, and she won't be sound until 3 to 3 1/2 months.  So it's hard to say how she's doing, because she's definitely lame. 

She was doing pretty good there for a while, I almost had her off bute, but then we got a nice one day thaw, just enough to rut the pastures up something awful, then it froze solid again and the horses can barely walk on it.  And she's been awful sore again since that freeze.  I'm sure the uneven ground isn't helping much, and some of it might be sore/bruised feet, since she is a thin soled tender foot.  But if I leave her in a stall for more than 12 hours, she's even more sore than she is on the uneven ground outside. 

So I guess this is the bad part about doing surgery in the winter, but on the up side, it keeps her from moving around too much and doing anything too stupid.  So, it's still a waiting game........

(pics aren't the sharpest since they are scaled way down)

Cody's right knee from the December visit the day before surgery, looking very nice and neat and clean and arthritis free, looking how a normal knee is supposed to look:

Cody's left knee after getting kicked in the knee back in Feb 2010.  The first one is basically the same view angle as the one above of the right knee.  The top ones are from December the day before surgery.  The bottom two are from the June visit when we finally found the problem.  You can see the arthritis and the collapsing lower joint.  That lower joint that is such a mess is the one that is fusing itself now after surgery, and you can see from the flexion x-ray that bottom joint doesn't move much at all, it's the other two joints that have all the motion.