Tuesday 19 July 2011

Anybody out there?

We are back in business!

That little knock in February turned out to be a lot worse than I was hoping. After seeing the vet the swelling got worse despite penning and ice packing poor Bally, so she was hoofed up to the yard on YO's trailer (nearly breaking my wrist in the process, thanks B!) and into a stable.

Xrays clear for splint bone damage, so with 4 x ice a day plus bandaging, I got the swelling down enough to scan...and there right at the point the suspensory ligament branches above the fetlock was a fibre disruption and swelling. No actual tears or lesions thank goodness! Probable cause hoolying in the field. Her right hind scanned clear though so no inherent weakness, a definite injury and just sheer bad luck
And so began the box rest...and the injections and the joint supplements and the herbal potions, with the 4 x a day ice packing...oh and the ultrasound twice a day, and the massage and the 2 x 20 minute hand walks, not to mention the egg bar shoes!!
For a feisty little Luso girl who'd spent the previous year living out in a herd on 17 acres it was an awful big ask to go into solitary confinement in a box....but she took to it like a duck to water. I reckoned she loved having me as a personal slave on call to tend to her every whim lol....me on the other hand...well it nearly broke me emotionally and physically...thank goodness for wonderful husband and sympathetic bosses, who let me reduce my work hours as I really could not cope with everything. Dark days :-(
Several months down the line and Madam B was allowed some pen turnout again, so she came home for a few weeks with a companion, Polly.
All well until the day she was tied up in the gateway, spooked, bounced into the gate and went over / through it, the gate post snapped, the baler twine didn't...so Bally took of in a red mist panic with the gate attached to her. She bolted straight through three lines of post and rail fencing. I got flattened trying to hold her to get the headcollar off and finally the snap hook on the leadrope gave way.
When I caught her I could see she was badly injured, totally non weight bearing right hind, blood pumping from her leg, scrapes and cuts all over including a big gash under her elbow. My vet and my friend Di were soon on the scene and with a makeshift splint on we got Bally to the horspital. I felt utterly distraught and sick with worry as we were sure she'd fractured her leg.
Thankfully no fracture, but she had shadowing that looked very much like it could develop into a hairline fracture and metal shards from the gate embedded in her leg. Her front and hind on the right swelled terribly as did her chest and belly.
So B had three weeks in the horspital on strict no movement box rest having her leg scraped down to the bone and flushed and regular x-ray monitoring...unbelievably and rather miraculously she healed completely and apart from a few small scars that will fade in time is as good as new and signed off fit and well from the accident!!

When she came back to the yard she had four more weeks box rest, then I gradually introduced pen rest with in hand walking...the last scan two weeks ago was a good improvement and as Bally sat and launched herself into the trot up Conor my vet was just..."WOW look at her move!!!" He reckoned the swelling was so minimal now she's pass a vetting on the leg no problem. Bally is enjoying being allowed out all night in her pen too!
So we have the OK to start ridden work...yes a whole 10 minutes straight line walking only, but increasing 5 minutes a week until the next scan...then hopefully we are properly back in schooling business.

So blogdom begins again now we actually have something to talk about other than disasters and upset!

3 comments:

  1. Ohmigosh!! What a horrible time you have had with your girl. Thank heavens she is OK and you are once again starting to ride.

    Scary, scary story all around. God must have been watching over you both to have such a successful recovery.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Jean, I have to say it's been a pretty hard start to the year! The only way is up :-D

    ReplyDelete
  3. aha!

    i tried to post the other day but blogger sometimes pretends i'm not signed in and won't let me....randomly!

    glad you're back to blogging....forum blogs don't quite "do it" for me!

    ReplyDelete