I've Been Here Before

Wednesday night I got texts and facebook messages and instagram comments from so many wonderful people. Then yesterday's blog post with so many comments, ah I can't tell you how much that meant to me. It may seem like a small thing that my horse is hurt (I even think my response was a grand overreaction but it's hard not to feel that way after so many soft tissue injuries with Rico), but it felt like a massive weight on my chest and the support I received chipped away at it until little by little it became manageable.

Going to miss seeing him every day

I stopped by the barn on Thursday morning at 6am to change his wrap and give him bute. Unfortunately he had ripped off the wrap on his good leg and yanked on the padding on the wrap on his bad leg. BAD PONY. Those were Rico's wraps and they did a damn good job making him all better and I do not want to replace them. So I rewrapped the bad leg (the good leg's track wrap was ripped, I don't care about those as much as I do about the padding since they don't seem to make no-bows like that anymore) and made sure to cover up the padding so that he had nothing to grab. Then it was off to work I went, waiting patiently to hear that TC got picked up and hauled down to yet another new place for him to live.

Wonderfully, everything at work went smoothly and I even had some fun with my coworkers at our holiday lunch. Then took off as early as I could to pick up my kitty and clothes for the week (although I'll be back in my town a couple of times this week for socialization purposes anyway, so I wasn't careful about what I brought), and headed down to the ranch to see my two horses. I love working from home on Fridays, I would have been worried if I couldn't see him on his first night.

I got there a bit later than I had hoped, but Jade settles in incredibly quickly at new places. She got out of her carrier, looked around, and immediately jumped up to her favorite place on the couch. Once as everything was squared away in my temporary living space, I headed up to the barn with my mom.

TC gets the stall in between Riot and Rico, although he is probably going to be switched so he is on the end and only has Rico next to him just to keep him a bit quieter since Riot spooks and runs a bit more. Luckily for TC, the grass is getting too green to let those fatties out all day, so he doesn't have to be alone. TC gets the cushiest stall he's ever had in my parents' fancy barn, then gets to go out onto a 12x16 paddock, 12x12 of which is covered. So he has a few feet where he can stand in the rain if he so chooses. The entire thing is covered in no climb wire because I need to stop my monkey horse from busting any more ligaments.

He was pretty wired

So far, Rico fucking hates him. I'm not sure if it is because he somehow thinks that TC is replacing him (this is me anthropomorphising though, because he hated TC even before I got there and revealed to Rico that TC was my horse), or if there's just something about TC that is annoying. I certainly think so sometimes. TC is afraid of Rico, so he stayed away from him and then kept checking to make sure he wasn't annoying Rico. That probably annoyed Rico.

Riot scares TC too, which I think is hilarious because I didn't think Riot could scare anyone if he tried. Riot thinks its pretty great that he scares TC. I caught him charging at the side of the stall at TC who then spooked at him. Poor baby horse, but he always does best when he is put in his place and told what to do. I think Rico will warm up to him once as he realizes that TC will play with him a bit. And Riot is already better today, playing with TC a little bit.

After I hugged Rico (who wouldn't even look at me when I got there for a good long while) and telling him that he should be GLAD that he was replaced, I employed my mom to help me with redoing TC's wrap.

It's been about twenty five years since my mom had an obnoxious young horse, so my main goal this week is to get TC being polite about his treatment so that she can continue it to whatever degree she is able to. She talked a big game about how much she'd be able to do and I thanked her profusely for her intentions, but told her to wait to see how he was doing.

Waiting for the vet

Sure enough, TC was a piece of shit. It's not his fault, he was plucked from his barn after not being exercised for a couple of weeks, stuffed in a new barn, and then on top of that, he had to handle... brace yourself... CROSS TIES. He's never been truly cross tied, so he experienced that for the first time and started rearing. Then we had a LOT of pawing and general shifting around. Luckily he's quiet in his stall though!

Getting the wrap off was an adventure, but his leg looked FANTASTIC. Zero swelling, zero heat, it's as if the injury never happened. I was SO HAPPY. Even Rico's check (a relatively minor injury- no tearing, just inflammation) took weeks to get the swelling down. This was down in two days with just two grams of bute per day. I had to describe in detail where the injury actually was to my mom, since she hadn't seen it when it was big and puffy. She said that wouldn't it be interesting if it was a mistake on the ultrasound, one can only hope.

I managed to wrestle tighten up, gauze pads, a gauze wrap, vetwrap, and a bit of elasticon on his leg, then put a standing wrap over it. Then the wrap got sprayed with RapLast, something I picked up at the tack store before I headed down last night. Let me tell you, this shit is like pepper spray, I sprayed his wrap and a little bit misted near my eye and I felt like I was going to die. So I'm assuming that it will work and that my wrap will be intact today.

The horse even looks like TC bahaha

As for a second opinion, I'm hauling TC up to my vet's clinic on Monday afternoon. Hopefully the ligament will be as tight as it can be by then so that we can get a very good look at what exactly he did without the pesky swelling in the way. Once as we have that, I'll have a good idea of what the future holds.

I'm super excited for my vet to get a look at it after seeing it last night. With a reduced board cost in the future + teaching all week (ALL WEEK, I just don't take vacations I guess), the cost of treating him doesn't feel as daunting. So he may be getting an injection at the origin site if my vet thinks that will help it heal. I want to give him the best opportunity, within reason, to heal completely. If the injury was just an accident, as long as it heals completely, we shouldn't have any more problems with it. As long as I can keep my damn kid off the monkey bars.

This was how I was greeted last night

By the way, I was thinking that wrapping was going to be tricky after I leave, so people who have used BOT, especially for ST, talk to me of your experiences!

I have the quick wraps that I bought for Rico years ago but ended up not using. I've thought about selling them but kept putting it off. I was realizing that TC could probably wear them in the front and that it might be an easy way to keep the leg protected (especially from just him banging on it, I think by then the swelling will be down so he won't need so much pressure on the leg) and also increase blood flow to help healing. I will ask my vet about it, but please tell me of your experiences!