Mark has headed back to work -- I'm sure he'll be relieved to be there and be able to sit down and REST sometimes during the day for the next couple weeks because he has been working his butt off day after day after day for the last two weeks! And that was true right up to the time he left today, too.
Ladybug had that surgery on her ear this afternoon. I took picture after picture with Mark's phone (since I couldn't find either my camera OR my phone). Not sure what I did wrong, but only this single picture came out. The surgeon is the guy on the left. The one with the syringe rinsing the incisions is a resident, I think. Quite a few vet students came along as well to watch and learn. She had quite an audience. The neighbors across the street were sitting out on their front porch watching the whole thing. Not to mention cars driving by who slowed down at the sight of a horse sprawled on a quilt on the grass under the trees in the front yard surrounded by a dozen people! Guess it did look pretty strange, at that!
Ladybug had that surgery on her ear this afternoon. I took picture after picture with Mark's phone (since I couldn't find either my camera OR my phone). Not sure what I did wrong, but only this single picture came out. The surgeon is the guy on the left. The one with the syringe rinsing the incisions is a resident, I think. Quite a few vet students came along as well to watch and learn. She had quite an audience. The neighbors across the street were sitting out on their front porch watching the whole thing. Not to mention cars driving by who slowed down at the sight of a horse sprawled on a quilt on the grass under the trees in the front yard surrounded by a dozen people! Guess it did look pretty strange, at that!
Poor Bug was out cold for well over an hour! They made several deep deep incisions into her ear to drain all that infection out of it (huge fountains of blood and pus spewed out after each incision! Yuk!), then they rinsed out all those holes with dozens of giant syringes full of (I presume) saline -- that's what he's doing in the photo.
And then, after the surgeon finished with her ear, Dr. C injected saline into that duct that runs from the tip of her nose up into her eye since her eye has been oozing. Darn. I sure wish those pictures had come out. It looked sooo strange to see them inserting saline at the tip of her nose and then see it run out of her eye as if she were crying! Poor baby!
And then, after the surgeon finished with her ear, Dr. C injected saline into that duct that runs from the tip of her nose up into her eye since her eye has been oozing. Darn. I sure wish those pictures had come out. It looked sooo strange to see them inserting saline at the tip of her nose and then see it run out of her eye as if she were crying! Poor baby!
After they finished, it took her another good 45 minutes to wake up and THAT scared me. She IS 23 years old. I was afraid the anesthetic might have been too much for her. But of course she did eventually wake up. She was VERY drunk for the next hour or so -- standing with all four legs spread apart in order to stay on her feet. And while she was still woozy, Dr. C. checked her teeth again. She needs the tooth opposite the one that was pulled filed down, but we've put that off for a while. Enough is enough for one day. But she's fine now. And so far she hasn't removed that ear covering I put on there to protect the bandages. I bought those silly-looking crocheted eat nets for her and for Lizzie LAST July when they both had ear abscesses, but I couldn't keep them on them over at Al's - they would just rub their ears against the barbed wire and the ear coverings would be off and their ears inevitably cut. But they both still have them on tonight. So far.
Dr. C will be back early Thursday morning to change out the bandages, so if she gets it off before then I guess I'll just confine her to her stall with a big fly mask with ears on it over that open wound. But I hope she leaves it alone because she's much happier with just her ears covered than she is with a regular fly mask. We'll see.
The sky opened up a few minutes ago and an absolute deluge came down all of a sudden. I ran over to the window to see what Duke and Lizzie were doing -- I had just turned the two of them out into the big main pasture together an hour or so before.
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| Duke and Lizzie turned out together for the first time here at home. A happy couple. |
When I got to the window the two of them were RACING back to the barn. I wondered what would happen if they raced into the same stall, but they didn't. Instead, each one went through the other's gate and into the other's stall. Just as they got to the doors they kind of hesitated and looked over at each other but ran on in. I could almost hear them saying "Oh, what the hell. It's RAINING! A stall is a stall." As it turned out, it only poured for about 5 minutes and now they're both back out in the big pasture. So it'll be interesting to see what they do when they come in for dinner in a couple minutes. (Hey - if they want to trade stalls, that's fine with me!)
Here's Lizzie in the paddock I put her in to begin with. Notice that she made a point of "marking" the fence line by the dog yard. I guess Lizzie is getting a bit more territorial that she used to be!
Lizzie got her ears checked today, as well. There's no abscess in hers this year, but they are really grungy. Dr. C. suggested I get some cream called "Swat" that keeps flies off of wounds (and, in this case, ears). She put some on Lizzie's ears and I put one of those ear covering things on her, as well. As you can see, she was NOT happy about that. Judging from her reaction, I'm sure in her case it won't be on long!
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