I don't know what he did, where he did it, or how it happened, but I walked into the barn yesterday late morning to put him and Stella out, did them up as usual, and led them out of the stalls only to find Ernie barely able to put weight on his LH. He was literally walking on his toe, hobbling along pathetically in an attempt to keep up. I immediately handed Stella to Alex, told him to put her back and put Ernie on the crossties.
I can't quite figure out where he's in pain: the whole lower leg was swollen up from hock to hoof. Palpation revealed tenderness just under the fetlock joint, but random bits of the leg were hot. There was no cuts, scraps, punctures, his hood was clean, nothing. I loaded him up with Banamine and called my vet, totally panicked, only to find he was on holiday for the weekend. Several minutes later, I had another vet on the phone, who brushed it off as an infection. INFECTIONS NEED AN ENTRANCE POINT, I yelled to him. THIS ISN'T AN INFECTION. He continued to poo-poo Ernie's injury, told me to put him on SMZ's and Bute and see how he was in the morning.
So I did.
He's doing OK now, he's able to walk around more or less OK, but he's on a pretty good dose of Bute so I have a feeling the drugs are making him feel a little too good. I discontinued the SMZ's, though. I may not have a veterinary degree, but I know what it takes to cause an infection. There is not a scratch on this horse's leg...nothing. There's no way bacteria got in over 5 hour period and caused this. He was fine Saturday night when I brought them in from pasture, and Donnie said he was alert, moving around and fine at 6:00AM Sunday morning. I went down and discovered all this at 11:00am Sunday morning. Infection that would cause this does not happen in 5 hours.
Thus, we are to some sort of ligament or tendon strain or tear. He's done it before, in the RH, about 6 years ago. He almost completely separated the lower suspensory branch from the bone, and it was an entire year before he was sound. I don't think this is that kind of serious, but after 6 coldhosings and 24/7 wrapping, the swelling and heat is still there. I'm hoping to get a vet out this week to ultrasound it and find out what's going on, but for now I'm in limbo.
What does this mean? If it turns out this is a soft tissue injury and he needs stall rest, well, it means I will have to have him put down sooner than I wanted or expected. Putting this horse on stall rest is torture, for him and me. At this point, he's retired (something I yelled to the vet many times when he kept asking when the last time I rode him was...he didn't seem to get it), and I'm not planning on doing anything with him other than letting him be a horse. If the diagnosis is poor and limiting movement is involved, he doesn't even get that. It's not fair to him, and the kindest thing do would be to let him go.
I don't know if I'm prepared for this. I don't know if I ever was even close to being prepared for this before the injury occurred. I'm just praying for the strength to deal with whatever comes of this.
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