The day of the fire Olivia's wound was examined by the vet who looked at all the surviving horses. Miraculously, Olivia is the only one who ended up with a wound. We believe she hit it on the corner of a metal mounting block. After the fire she was found in the arena with her other baby friend, frantic as you can imagine.
I returned home from North Carolina on Saturday, two days after the fire. Olivia had been hand walked by my friends while I was gone. She seemed to be doing good, but due to the location of the puncture the vet wanted us to keep a close eye on her. An infection making its way to the joint was a possibility since it was right on her knee. The day of the fire she was injected with antibiotics as a precaution, but it was still something to watch for.
When I got home I went straight to see her. And much to my dismay, she was in a tremendous amount of pain. She barely wanted to move in her stall to greet me. When I brought her out she was barely even baring any weight on it. I called the vet back out. She immediately suggested that we head to the surgery clinic in fear an infection was seeding in her knee.
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| Heading the the Clinic |
Once we got to the clinic [review on this clinic coming soon!], we took X RAYS and determined there was no infection in the joint.
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| Puncture Wound |
But what was determined was that she fractured her knee. It was minor but was the source of her pain. You can see the chip below on the X RAY, look to the bottom left and you can see the chip splintered out from the knee. This image was taken straight on with her knee flexed back.
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| Bone Fracture |
We decided to keep her at the clinic. Since the drive was 2 hours we didn't want to risk any further complications with added stress. In hindsight, I wish I had taken her home, but more to come on that later...
Hello. New follower and fellow animal lover and advocate. I'm so happy I've found your blog. I look forward to reading more and getting to know you!
ReplyDeleteAw, cliff hanger! I sure would worry about a wound like that, too! The Ranch had a mare that got pigeon fever last summer and she kept getting abscesses on her legs and the ones in her joints finally did her in, she could hardly walk, she was in her late twenties and just couldn't fight it off despite antibiotics and lots of care. It was so sad. I don't know the whole story, is it on the blog, how Olivia and other horses survived? Were they let out of the barn or was she in the arena at the time of the fire?
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