Ever since last Wednesday I've been a mess trying to wrap my head around the fact that both my horses are injured, and safe to say it's not been an easy few days. Over the weekend I was in Finland attending my grandfather's funeral after he passed away after losing the fight against cancer, yet at the same time all I could think about was that one of the vets was coming to see Erik on Monday afternoon.
On Wednesday morning when we went to turn out the horses, I noticed a new rather large area of swelling on the inside of Erik's front leg and with a more prodding I also found quite hard smaller lump in the middle of swelling. Thinking that he'd just banged himself overnight (clumsy horse) I turned him out and tried to think nothing of it - whilst at the same time going into a total melt down in my brain - and decided to give him days off over the weekend whilst we were away and hopefully it would have gone down and away on it's own. However seeing the leg on Thursday morning before our flight, I decided that there was no way I would be able to cope mentally unless a vet confirmed to me that there was nothing more serious going on. I had nightmares of broken bones and torn ligaments!
Luckily Monday afternoon came round quickly and we had the lovely Manuela from Wessex Equine come have a look at his leg. After hearing about what we thought had happened and my explanation of the swelling have gone down incrementally each day, but also that it is more swollen in the morning after a night in his stable and that the swelling goes down when he's been turned out, so after a quick examination of the leg, the vet wanted to see Erik moving. We did the usual walk and trot in a straight line on a hard surface, and then lunged in the arena - during which Erik was on his best behaviour and the vet agreed that he wasn't lame and was actually moving quite well! I'm REALLY pleased that he's not in any pain and is moving so well, he's not been on any painkillers so that the vet could see exactly how he's doing.
We took X-rays just to see what was causing that hard lump. There could be a few reasons for that, so we had to find out if it was a broken bone that had started to get calcification? Or was it a fractured splint bone that was moving and causing irritation to the soft tissue, or could it just be a soft tissue reaction to him kicking himself? And do you know what, those five minutes that it took to get all the X-rays done were some of the most tense minutes of my life - I think if a nurse had taken my heart rate then they'd have thought I was in the midst of running a marathon! Luckily, nothing is broken. The splint bones and the cannon bone all look great, and from the X-rays it looks like it could just be the soft tissue around the bone reacting to Erik more than likely hitting himself with the other leg. Obviously we cannot 100% rule out a tendon or ligament injury without scanning his leg (I will more than likely end up having the scans done too - bye bye hard earned wages 💸) but for the moment he is getting a week of rest, ice boots and Ekyflogyl which is an anti-inflammatory lotion being applied twice a day to see how the leg reacts. Hopefully the leg will start to look better within a few days so that I can start to relax a little bit. And as he's not lame and he doesn't react at all if you squeeze the swelling, I'm desperately hoping that it is just a bruise from a bang to the leg, rather than a tendon or ligament problem.
We took X-rays just to see what was causing that hard lump. There could be a few reasons for that, so we had to find out if it was a broken bone that had started to get calcification? Or was it a fractured splint bone that was moving and causing irritation to the soft tissue, or could it just be a soft tissue reaction to him kicking himself? And do you know what, those five minutes that it took to get all the X-rays done were some of the most tense minutes of my life - I think if a nurse had taken my heart rate then they'd have thought I was in the midst of running a marathon! Luckily, nothing is broken. The splint bones and the cannon bone all look great, and from the X-rays it looks like it could just be the soft tissue around the bone reacting to Erik more than likely hitting himself with the other leg. Obviously we cannot 100% rule out a tendon or ligament injury without scanning his leg (I will more than likely end up having the scans done too - bye bye hard earned wages 💸) but for the moment he is getting a week of rest, ice boots and Ekyflogyl which is an anti-inflammatory lotion being applied twice a day to see how the leg reacts. Hopefully the leg will start to look better within a few days so that I can start to relax a little bit. And as he's not lame and he doesn't react at all if you squeeze the swelling, I'm desperately hoping that it is just a bruise from a bang to the leg, rather than a tendon or ligament problem.
If anyone wants to send me good luck vibes and best wishes that would be great! I think I've had enough bad luck after losing our dog, Basse and my grandad this summer, I don't need another injured horse with a long rehab time on top of it 😥
*** UPDATE *** The vet came back on Friday 20.09.2019 to scan the leg and we unfortunately and very surprisingly found a lesion in his suspensory branch. This means 2 months of paddock rest, then rescan and see how it has healed - if all goes well, then start 2 months of walk work and rescan the leg again before introducing any trot work. Devastated doesn't even come close to how I'm feeling 😖
*** UPDATE *** The vet came back on Friday 20.09.2019 to scan the leg and we unfortunately and very surprisingly found a lesion in his suspensory branch. This means 2 months of paddock rest, then rescan and see how it has healed - if all goes well, then start 2 months of walk work and rescan the leg again before introducing any trot work. Devastated doesn't even come close to how I'm feeling 😖
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