Life is Never Dull on the Farm

     These last few days have been an adventure! And life is certainly never dull on the farm. I am blessed to praise God every day for all that he has given me. My life is certainly amazing and I would not trade it for anything.

     However, that does not mean that things will never come do discourage me. Last week Fanny choked fairly severely. Our amazing vet rushed out to resolve it and pump her full of drugs. We put her on a pellet/mash diet and started the waiting game.

     The next morning she had choked again. Bad news! The vet came out again that night and we repeated the process of resolving her. Which includes sedating her then we pass a nasogastric tube through her esopohogas down to the point where the blockage is. Then you flush it out with lots of warm water until the blockage breaks down and then you suck it all back out through the tube. The first night we were doing it for about an hour and a half and the second night it was for about forty-five minutes.

     The vet suspected a stricture in her esophogas with lots of scar tissue from previous chokes. You can feel a large lump in her esophogas which could be a number of things. The two most likely are either it is a melanoma or a lymph node. She has melanoma pretty bad, 99% of Grey horses get them at some point in their lives, however they don't usually go internal unless they get really bad. And it is a deffinate possibility because of Fanny's age.

     So, we took her off of all feed for 24 hours. Thankfully she didn't choke during that time. She also drank lots of water. YES! When I fed her that night a mixture of Equine Senior and wheat bran mixed with lots of warm water to create a soupy consistency. She drank it all really great and didn't choke or show any signs of choking.

     She is still doing great today, several days later. She is on some SMZ's which is a sulfa drug. I have to give those to her 2x a day. It is the same stuff that Bailey was on when she stepped on the nail. She is also on banamine which is a pain drug. I haven't given it to her for a couple of days though.  I am also giving her some probiotics every day because they are kind of brutal antibiotics.

All of her drugs. I have used like 1 1/2 bottles of Molasses. Now I am going to try Kool-Aid.
Anything to hide the antibiotics! I have also used 2 syringes of probios. and already a bottle of antibiotics.
Plus all the wheat bran and Equine Senior! AHHH!

  
  She will be one the 'soup' diet for about another week, then we will start introducing hay back to her. That's where I'm worried but we will have to wait and see.

Another thing, She was diagnosed with Cushing's disease. A complex disease in which the body over produces steroids. This causes an overlong thick shaggy & curly coat, excessive thirst, muscle wasting, wight loss and excessive sweating among several other things. The condition causes pain not to be felt as much. But they are more prone to things like hoof abscesses lamnitis (founder) and other things, but they don't feel it, so conditions can fester and get really bad without anybody even noticing. Similar to a diabetic human. She isn't too bad yet and there is a medication available but it is expensive so, we don't really know yet. We're just trying to get her over her choking problem, and then we"ll worry about the Cushings.

     The outlook certainly didn't look good for a couple of days. But God is very generous, and we are blessed to still have Fanny with us, even if it's only for a couple more days, or weeks, or months.