Saturday, May 19, 2007

More Life Lessons - an Arabian Filly Injured Part 6



Part one

It's been a week since we began playing with the contraption with the shin guard and the cotton reins. It's still doing a pretty good job of protecting the wound from the Arabian horse.

The weather is still going back and forth between cold and hot so we have to adjust what we have under the reins accordingly. But the filly hasn't developed any rub marks from the reins so we're doing ok there.

While we still haven't figured out a way to keep the dressing itself from slipping down, the shin guard is staying up in place over the wound. The result is we FINALLY have some granulation tissue. For the very first time since this whole thing started two weeks ago last Thursday, we have some forward progress.

Echo is still really leery of anyone entering her stall. She gets particularly upset with two people coming in because she knows for sure we going to do something to her. I have to give her credit, she's trying really hard to co-operate.

Once we strip off the old dressing, I take her outside and flush the wound with lots of cold water. I was worried about doing this in the beginning because I thought she'd have a cow over it. However, the cold water must feel good because she stands there like a champ. It's much easier to clean her wound out this way than doing it by hand with a sterilized cotton and water.

Dave and I just came in from doing a dressing change this evening. There has been more granulation tissue added and for the first time ever, the wound looks like it is improving. Echo let us wash it out thoroughly with the hose again. The the horse stood with a little persuasion from Dave (he acted like he was going to pick up her other front foot to distract her) and let me redress the wound without a twitch. If we can just continue on like this, maybe we'll all get through this intact. I'll keep you posted.



4 comments:

  1. YAY - great to hear good news!
    (Hope your finger is feeling better as well. :) )

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  2. This weather is really batty, isn't it? Sorry you're needing to deal with it on top of your other issues; never fun trying to adjust to the temp changes!

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  3. We are all pulling for Echo to heal quickly. Just hope you are taking care of yourself as well:-) Looking forward to good news.

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  4. That sounds great!!! Hope it is still steadily improving. I have even tried sticky tape to secure bandages in places that are hard to keep them up. It sometimes works, I use a product called CoverRoll. It is cotton and lets the area under it breathe. You can get one that is more stretchy than the other. I use it for Larry's dressings and in desperation tried some on one occasion.

    Hope you are coping well.

    Lori

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