Post by tierra madre on Jul 16, 2008 5:16:10 GMT -8
More Tarzan & Dawnie
Doc was here yesterday to check on Tarzan & Dawnie.
Tarzan's eye is improving. The little capillaries are, indeed, regenerating - albeit slowly. To speed the process, Doc suggested he scrape the little membrane covering Tarzan's eye. The membrane was slowing the process. He explained it as when you've had a cut & it's scabbed over. The wound will slowly heal from the outside inward. If the scab is removed, however, the skin will grow more quickly & the wound will heal faster. Same with Tarzan's membrane.
We had to tranq him a little to do it, but ol' T handled it like a champ. Doc said Tarzan's positive attitude toward our care is doing him more good than anything. Many horses rebel at anyone fiddling with their eyes & the whole process becomes a long, drawn-out expensive & traumatic nightmare.
Pretty delicate stuff there, what Doc did to Tarzan's eye out in an open pen. I held his head still & at an angle where Doc could easily work on the eye. Tarzan stood rock still. I was so proud of him. Doc said he'd accomplished exactly what he'd set out to do & that Tarzan should begin to improve more rapidly. He doesn't need to see him for almost two weeks.
The other good news is that I can back down the number of medicine applications - from 10 a day down to 8. d**n. I was hoping it'd be less than that - that takes a good deal of time, taken altogether during the day.
Here's the process, if you care: I keep a halter on Tarzan now, during his convalescence. I go into his pen, grab the lead rope. Give him a treat. Attach the lead rope. Give him another treat. Take off his fly mask & lay it across his withers. Another treat. Take the tube from my pocket & take off the top. Put both hands gently on the right side of his face (his good eye side) & keep my hands on him as I pivot around to his bad left eye. Pull down his lower lid a little & squeeze maybe 1/4 inch of medicine in. Rub it in gently. Retreat back to his good side. Another treat. Replace his fly mask. One last treat, unhook the lead rope & split. The whole process - from retrieving whichever medicine I'm using (we use 3 different ones a day) to retrieving a pocketful of treats to walking back to his pen to the process itself & retracing everything to put the medicine away - the whole process takes nearly 10 minutes. That's nearly an hour & a 1/2 a day. Whatever, right? It's Tarzan & we'll do anything we have to do to get him right again.
As for Dawnie, Doc just gave her a cursory once-over yesterday. He wants to make sure all the inflammation is out of her hooves before he has Jackie trim her so she'll begin to reverse the rotation in her coffin bones. That means another two weeks of isoxuprine twice a day & another two weeks of her new diet (no alfalfa & Mare & Maintenance instead of Strategy or Equine Senior). We're both really pleased with her walking, though. There's almost no evidence of lameness now. She's at the point where I'll begin to titrate her off the bute. She's been taking two grams a day. Now she'll go down to one a day. If she responds well to that for a few days, I'll take her off it completely. If there's no soreness, I'll keep her off it. If she does get sore, I'll go back to a gram a day.
She also seems pretty happy in her new "Dawnie House". She can hang with the other horses with only the fence between them but she can always get away when she wants to. Sometimes, the little drama queen conjures up images of that famous actress whose name escapes me right now (Gloria Swanson?): "I vant to be alone."
So - bottom line on Tarzan & Dawnie: progress.
And, as we say in AA, "progress, not perfection".
Jim
Doc was here yesterday to check on Tarzan & Dawnie.
Tarzan's eye is improving. The little capillaries are, indeed, regenerating - albeit slowly. To speed the process, Doc suggested he scrape the little membrane covering Tarzan's eye. The membrane was slowing the process. He explained it as when you've had a cut & it's scabbed over. The wound will slowly heal from the outside inward. If the scab is removed, however, the skin will grow more quickly & the wound will heal faster. Same with Tarzan's membrane.
We had to tranq him a little to do it, but ol' T handled it like a champ. Doc said Tarzan's positive attitude toward our care is doing him more good than anything. Many horses rebel at anyone fiddling with their eyes & the whole process becomes a long, drawn-out expensive & traumatic nightmare.
Pretty delicate stuff there, what Doc did to Tarzan's eye out in an open pen. I held his head still & at an angle where Doc could easily work on the eye. Tarzan stood rock still. I was so proud of him. Doc said he'd accomplished exactly what he'd set out to do & that Tarzan should begin to improve more rapidly. He doesn't need to see him for almost two weeks.
The other good news is that I can back down the number of medicine applications - from 10 a day down to 8. d**n. I was hoping it'd be less than that - that takes a good deal of time, taken altogether during the day.
Here's the process, if you care: I keep a halter on Tarzan now, during his convalescence. I go into his pen, grab the lead rope. Give him a treat. Attach the lead rope. Give him another treat. Take off his fly mask & lay it across his withers. Another treat. Take the tube from my pocket & take off the top. Put both hands gently on the right side of his face (his good eye side) & keep my hands on him as I pivot around to his bad left eye. Pull down his lower lid a little & squeeze maybe 1/4 inch of medicine in. Rub it in gently. Retreat back to his good side. Another treat. Replace his fly mask. One last treat, unhook the lead rope & split. The whole process - from retrieving whichever medicine I'm using (we use 3 different ones a day) to retrieving a pocketful of treats to walking back to his pen to the process itself & retracing everything to put the medicine away - the whole process takes nearly 10 minutes. That's nearly an hour & a 1/2 a day. Whatever, right? It's Tarzan & we'll do anything we have to do to get him right again.
As for Dawnie, Doc just gave her a cursory once-over yesterday. He wants to make sure all the inflammation is out of her hooves before he has Jackie trim her so she'll begin to reverse the rotation in her coffin bones. That means another two weeks of isoxuprine twice a day & another two weeks of her new diet (no alfalfa & Mare & Maintenance instead of Strategy or Equine Senior). We're both really pleased with her walking, though. There's almost no evidence of lameness now. She's at the point where I'll begin to titrate her off the bute. She's been taking two grams a day. Now she'll go down to one a day. If she responds well to that for a few days, I'll take her off it completely. If there's no soreness, I'll keep her off it. If she does get sore, I'll go back to a gram a day.
She also seems pretty happy in her new "Dawnie House". She can hang with the other horses with only the fence between them but she can always get away when she wants to. Sometimes, the little drama queen conjures up images of that famous actress whose name escapes me right now (Gloria Swanson?): "I vant to be alone."
So - bottom line on Tarzan & Dawnie: progress.
And, as we say in AA, "progress, not perfection".
Jim