The swelling has gone down and although she is still lame she is getting a better extention when she is walking so i am hoping that she managed to not do damage to the nerve in her shoulder!
The vet was out again yesterday for a check up and was also glad to see that the swelling had gone down around the wound itself and that the haematoma size had decreased considerably in size - I have been massaging it under the cold hose and then massaging it again when applying the cream perscribed by the vet.
I hadn't cleaned anything before she examined K so that she could get an authentic look at it as it came out of the box, although i had been grazing her in the sunshine for over an hour at that stage. She gave Kika another shot of anti-inflamatories and told me to make sure to throuroughly clean the wound every day and get rid of any and all crustiness (don' worry have no pics of it as it comes out of the stable! - only ones of it post-cleaning). She said that the anti-inflamatories should wear off/run their course by friday, so come saturday we'll have a better idea of how lame she is without the drugs, although she did say that is she is still very bad come monday to call her again and she'll come back for another look. Tomorrow will be K's last day to receive the powder in her feed and the Hipopla-something (will write name down tomorrow) that I am orally syrringing into her's dose was decreased to 15mls for yesterday and today, 10mls for tomorrow and wendnesday and then down to 5mls for thursday and friday.
I mentioned that the haematoma is after shrinking greatly, however today i noticed (with the help of friends who were observing my new regime) that it is kind of after splitting in two. My fault i think with the massaging! I obviously wasn't massaging the whole thing properly and there are now two smaller lumps...Hopefully I'm not after doing something stupid and that now that i know and can massage both areas, that the haematoma will keep shrinking and then hopefully disappear completely!
Now for some snapshots from this evening, post-cleaning! (Taken with the "new" phone - so hopefully better quality than the last pictures - but still probably not great!)
The Haematoma(s)
And now for a few of the wound itself post-cleaning. I am actually thinking now that she didn't receive a kick at all, or at least i don't think that that is what caused this damage. I haven't taken a pic of this as i'm not sure how strong my "followers" stomachs are, but in order to clean the wound thoroughly i have to pull out a bit the flap of skin on the left of the wound in the pictures. It is more like a stab/slice wound than a battering such as would be received from another hoof. I think (although haven't been up to check the field) that perhaps while fighting/playing in the field she somehow managed to come down on one of the stakes/posts that the wire is attached to in the field. Also not sure exactly how she would have done it, but the angle of the wound, the positioning and the slince/stab effect leads to me to think it probably wasn't a hoof that did it... But as she can't tell me, we'll never know so i'm not going to waste too much time specualtng over it!
She was so so so good yesterday to let me clean it all out, she stood good as gold, my mother who was with me, was very impressed by her as she is usually very impatient at being tied up in the wash bay area and stomps her feet etc. However she was noticeably more sore/lame as i returned her to her box last night. Admittedly we may have over done it on the grazing as we had started out in an area close to where she is currently being stabled (4 boxes down from her usual stable as that currently has another occupant seeing as K is supposed to be outside for the summer), but we were asked by the owner of the farm not to graze her there so we had to move her to another patch which was considerably further away and required more walking there and then back up which could have worn her out. Either that or the cleaning and massaging affected her! But it required more cleaning today then yesterday and she wasn't as sore going back to the box today so methinks it was probably the walk to and from grazing!
She wasn't as quiet with the cleaning process today, there was a bit more foot stamping and moving about as i had to kind of pick at the wound to clean out sawdust etc. In saying that though she was still very good, and as i have to be bent over she just rests her lips/muzzle on my back kind of huffing as if to say "it's hurting but i know you have to do it!" We also had to wait a little bit to use the wash bay as people were finishing up their lessons and with 28C temps their horses needed a cool down! So impatience may have also contributed to the moving and foot stamping...
Well that's all the news i have for the moment! Will know more come the weekend once the anti-inflamatories wear off and we can see how she moves without them. I'll also be able to start walking her more (pending lameness) after the weekend, slowly increasing the distances covered so as not to over-exert things!
Hopefully these images aren't too gorey! If they are please tell me and I can remove them and place links instead so that anyone who may not wish to look doesn't have to!
Not sure when I'll have anything new to report, probably not till the weekend when we'll have a better idea of how things stand, although if the haematoma(s) keep decreasing in size i may post a follow up photo - fingers crossed i can keep them getting smaller!
I'm glad she's doing better!
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