I had to stay at work today and couldn't go out to the barn when the vet came so Mark met her over there and brought the horses in for her. I just talked to her and she said the abscess in Bug's ear is NOT related to any disease like strangles or anything because none of her lymph nodes are swollen, even the one right by that ear. The vet drained the abscess and flushed it out, then fastened a drain in there that we are to use to flush the abscess twice a day with a solution of saline and betadine. She also put Bug on a broad-spectrum antibiotic, less for the abscess itself than because some of the gunk that drains out of it is draining partly INTO her ear. Yuk.
Anyway, I'm really glad Mark is home. It will be a whole lot easier to deal with flushing it out with his help than it would have been alone.
I usually put them into the cross ties in the wash rack to do things like that since the side bars on the rack are only about a foot wider than the horse so even if they decide to fight, they can't get too carried away. AND they can't flip around and kick at you. There just isn't room. That's a very good thing in Bug's case. She has a tendency to "cow kick" out to the side, though, so it will still be necessary to stay alert!
The vet said that if we aren't able to do the flush to call her and she will come out a couple times and re-flush it for us. But since there's no way she's going to be able to come twice a day (certainly not without costing us a small fortune anyway), we WILL flush the thing out ourselves - whatever it takes. I'm hoping lots of treats will do the job! Bug is as big a sucker for cookies as I am!
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