A Second Opinion

On Monday afternoon, I hauled TC back up to the vet clinic, where just four short months ago, I got the amazing news that he passed his vet check and that I'd be buying him. Ah how times have changed.

Let me reiterate what I had said then, I love my vet. My vet is actually a wizard. He works primarily with big fancy sport horses and has specialized in lamenesses in those big fancy sport horses for years and years. He saw that Rico was lame and needed surgery because his injured fetlock dropped slightly lower than his non-injured one. No headbobbing, no stepping short, just that one fetlock was below the other. Sure enough, the DDFT had a hole in it. A HOLE. Luckily TC is a bit more obvious with his injuries.

So no one was going to touch my horse from the second I found out this was soft tissue except for wizard vet. And he was pretty happy to see us too, he was probably thinking oh good, I thought I had gotten all the Ferraris and European vacations out of this client, good to see that she breaks her new horse too. I swear he probably called his wife after seeing me on the schedule and said honey, good news! Megan made a vet appointment, call the contractor, let's get that dream kitchen we always wanted! 

Drugs, we love them

I hauled TC up for our 2:30 appointment in the pouring rain, I was lucky that my dad volunteered to come with me because hauling in the dark and rain and rush hour traffic (on the way home) is terrifying.

We got there and TC was immediately pissed, his life is the worst right now and he wants everyone around him to suffer as much as he does. I put him in a stall there and he started slamming himself against the walls to get out. My vet rushed over and TC immediately got tranquilized. He then stood contently while I updated my vet. Drugs are the best.

I walked my then very quiet and polite baby horse over to the examination area, where he led perfectly and stood quietly while we talked and he got his legs shaved again. He then got more drugs and off we were on yet another ultrasound adventure.

Let me tell you this- even though I doubled my vet bills by doing a second opinion, it was SO worth it. I love wizard vet. I'm glad I got the first ultrasound since that made it obvious that we were dealing with ST (and I would have kicked myself for arranging all this hauling to find out that my horse had an abscess), but the second opinion made me take a big deep breath and firmly believe that this is going to be okay.

It's the funniest thing to see them together. Rico is actually
a solid two inches taller than TC. But TC has so much more
presence (and that neck set) which makes him seem bigger.

The injury isn't as bad as it seemed. He did rip it up a bit by the origin site, but it's only on the medial side and although it's a bit swollen, it's not as big as you'd expect it to be if it were really bad. Slightly further down (not where the swelling was- apparently that was literally nothing, no second tear) it also gets a bit inflamed as it tries to adhere itself to the medial splint bone. My vet thinks that it was a big accident where he fell off his fence and also hit it pretty hard, since a lot of the time the suspensory will do this when the interosseus ligament (the ligament that runs around the cannon + splint bones and when irritated, creates a splint) is inflamed, and that happens when the horse has a blow to his stupid dumb leg.

So we're pretty much confirmed that TC was climbing his fence and fell. Phew. Vet says it isn't chronic, not from regular wear and tear, so if he comes back 100%, he will be 100% (unlike Rico whose DDFT was from wear and tear and poor conformation, meaning that there was always a risk that his regular work load would cause problems again).

The thing with the suspensory trying to adhere itself to the splint bone is that if it manages to do it, we're facing surgery or a chronic suspensory injury. LUCKILY right now the suspensory injury is considered acute and is considered a contusion, so will go down in his records as such. IF it adheres, it will be considered a separate injury. So if I want to get insurance now, the insurance will cover him if he needs surgery (but won't cover anything right now). Definitely thinking about doing that.

This view again, ugh

Regardless, obviously we want to prevent this because I don't want yet another horse who needs fucking surgery to make him sound enough to prance around in a sandbox. I'm not trying to event him, I'm not trying to jump him 5' (well, maybe I should), I'm not looking to do endurance on hard ground up and down hills for many miles. I literally just want to trot around in perfect footing for 45 minutes 5x per week. What the fuck indeed.

To prevent this we have to... wait. Ugh. I was like INJECT IT WITH ALL THE THINGS, I swear I was sitting there shoving my checkbook in his face. But since there is no hole in it (woohoo), there is no place for injections to go and injecting anything into the origin site (which is between the splint bones- very small area) will merely piss off the whole thing and make it adhere MORE. So what we need to do is look at it in two months and see what is happening.

Apparently, Rico's suspensory (omg suspensory twins ftw! I hate horses) was at risk of doing this too and it never did. I totally forgot about that part of that injury.

The main thing, my vet said, is to keep TC from doing more damage while in rehab. So we're planning two things.

1) TC got a long term tranquilizer that will kick in about 5-6 days from now. He'll get another in 30 days.
2) TC is going to a rehab facility.

I will go over the reasons for rehab in tomorrow's post, but it's the best thing for everyone involved.

So ready to be done with this

Generally, my vet was pretty happy with what we saw and seems positive that everything is going to be okay. I'm glad that (at least for now) I didn't have the option for PRP or stem cells, since I am always worried that they will tell me how much it will be and I will have to say no. My vet had a better schedule than the other vet, TC can start the eurociser (or aquapacer) in a week and I can start riding in 3-4 months.

Although I am planning on being a bit more conservative than my vet thinks. I told him that TC will likely not cooperate with "trot 30 seconds, walk 1 minute" and that rehab will be more like "gallop 30 seconds, be held back by terrified rider 1 minute" so I want to make sure he is strong enough where if he launches me and turns himself out, that I won't feel the need to rush him to the vet.

So I'm feeling more positive but a little more nervous. When it's a big unknown it's easy to just assume it's a typical suspensory injury, but knowing there's a chance of adherence is frustrating. But my vet feels pretty sure that we're in the clear and I really hope this is the case. Either way, TC needs to quiet the fuck down and be a good boy for his rehab so that he doesn't spend a life in pasture being used as an up down lesson horse and a light trail horse (I've begun making decisions on what to do with him if he can't stay sound). Come on baby horse.