from the horse's mouth

general meanderings on horses, life (well thats the same as horses really), work (so I can afford to do the horses thing)

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Location: Scotland, United Kingdom

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Fi in the wars again

Hmmm.... thought I had blogged this but clearly not. Back in September Fi tried to take a short cut across a corner. One slight problem.... there was a fence on the corner. She ripped open her shoulder.

I was on a train to Birmingham for a work thing so the first I knew was that classic phone call from home

Don't worry but.....
:o

By that stage the vet had been and spent 2 and a half hours stitching her up.  She (Fi not the vet !) was on box rest and the other two were up in the stable yard to stop her stressing. I got home the next evening and went to see her the morning after. So this is on day 2 (12Sept)

She had to have daily jags of antibiotics...and that wasn't much fun for either of us as I was worrying about hurting her... and hence making it worse by hesitating. (It was intramuscular into her hind quarters). She was due to have the stitches out 10 days later but there was some fluid along the bottom edge so we continued with the jags and waited another week.
It looks fairly messy in this shot, and you can see the stitches. She had to stay on box rest til the stitches were out.

And now without the stitches, but you can see where the fluid has slumped to the botton edge of the wound
You'll spot a darker area of fur "behind" the wound in some of these views - she would get a small area that sweated. I gather this relates to the nerves etc that were affected in the injury.

By 6th Oct, this is what we have
And by 20th Oct, although the wound looks fairly scabby, it is already much smaller and the longer edges have healed well.

The large area of scab gradually came away, sometimes with a bit of "help" from Fi when she rolled. She's taken the top off sections of it a few times but it has continued to improve - and this is what it looked like on 30th Nov





Amazing isn't it :D
Kudos to the vet who did such an excellent job
(and to my folks who acted so quickly when she hurt herself and that probably gave us a much better chance)