| NOT the update i thought i'd be making |
[Feb. 28th, 2007|12:24 am] |
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| | Ego Likeness: The Explanation at the Center of It All | ] |
There's a bit of irony in the fact that when i finally got a half decent profile photo of my baby girl horse, it was on the right side. i'll have to be content with that camera phone photo because she'll never look like that again.
Okay lemme back up a day. Yesterday i got a phone call from Wendy's daughter who has been taking care of the horses in Wendy's absence, to tell me that there was something wrong with Ravyn's eye. She had already called the vet, who went out there in the evening to look at her. i didn't go because the mud was so deep that i'd be risking a fall, and i'm not supposed to put full weight on my leg yet.
The vet gave her some medication for an infection, but, she saw something she couldn't identify, so she did some research and called an equine ophthalmologist (!!) at the New Bolton Center in PA. This morning she called me and said that the inner layer of the cornea was protruding outward, one of the last stages before the iris prolapses and the eyeball actually ruptures.
Many, many thanks to Wendy, Sarah, and Pam, who offered to take Ravyn up to PA (a three-plus hour drive) in her trailer. We got her seen by the ophth. doc in the early evening. The diagnosis: a melting ulcer. What this means is that there is an infection of some sort, which caused the cornea to rapidly start liquefying, digesting itself.
The bad news, it is too far gone to treat with medicine only. The good news, surgery might be able to preserve some vision in the right eye. The bad news, she will have a permanent scar and blind spot. The good news, she should be able to make the adjustment, and even if she doesn't retain vision in that eye, she can still compete in dressage, and hunter/jumper, and pretty much have a good life.
So i am up here in West Chester, PA, while the docs are treating her with meds hourly overnight, to prep her for surgery. Considering she only has a little bit of leadline training, and hadn't been on a trailer since she left the PMU farm as a 4-month-old, she did very well. She let all these strangers come up to her and examine her (vet students), and has been so good that they can't get over it :-)
After her surgery, she will need at least a week of stall care, and i will have to board her either here at the hospital, or at a nearby farm that takes in hospital patients. i will not be staying, LOL.
i hope to have before and after photos tomorrow, for the not-so-faint-of-heart <grin> |
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