More Problems for Divna

I feel SO BAD for my poor horse! She has been through so much.....she has had 2 foals, had moon blindness for years, lost her eye to glaucoma (which required three surgeries and days and days in the hospital), has colicked twice (once just recently), got caught up in a wire fence (also recently) and now she has an injury!


She is such a sweet horse.....so easy to ride, so precious to be around. It just breaks my heart that things seem to keep happening to her. She is 14 years old, so I guess in reality she has been really healthy and has had relatively few problems -- I am aware that it could be MUCH worse. Some horses live with chronic conditions and illnesses (like that poor horse we tried to help Christmas weekend). But she is my horse, and I love her. Anything she goes through that hurts her, hurts me as well.


Just after New Year's Day, I noticed Divna had a cut on her right leg, up high near where the leg meets the body, on the backside of the leg. It did not seem to be bothering her -- she walked normally, and did not mind or even seem to notice that I handled the area. Divna is usually really jumpy and difficult to work with when something is bothering her and/or scaring her. She did not react at all to this, so I put some Furmacin salve on the wound.


After a couple of days, I noticed it was beginning to drain quite a bit....I attempted to bandage it. I tried bandaging every way I could think of, even looking in books for bandaging methods. The bandages just would not stay. My horse reference book said that a cut in that area is one of the most difficult to bandaage, and it is true.


Then, a day or two later the drainage got worse. I could then see more of the cut, and it did not look good -- it looked worse than what I originally realized. I started her on antibiotics and called the vet.


As it turns out, it was worse. It was actually a gash. I have guilt that I did not call the vet immediately. Considering what happened over Christmas weekend with the poor horse we tried to save.....well, I feel horrible. Like the worst horse owner on Earth.


So the vet comes out and assesses the situation. It is a very strange gash with a sort of "pocket" area above the cut (??). He had to suture it and put in a drain tube. He gave her an antibiotic injection, and gave us some more antibiotic pills. He will be back to check her in a week, then hopefully suture removal in another week.


We have had a LOT of snow here, and John said today Divna and Zora were running and jumping and playing in the snow.That coupled with the fact that she has yet to show any sign of favoring that leg, or limping or anything, assuages my guilt somewhat. I check her sutures every morning and evening when I give her the antibiotic, and so far everything looks good in spite of her running and jumping.


The strange thing is, we have absolutely no idea how this happened to her. At first I thought it was the fence incident, but that would have been almost a month ago and the injury doesn't appear that old. The vet said it looks more like she impaled herself on something. All of our fence posts are upright and secure....there is nothing else in the pasture that we can find....so I have no explanation. The vet assistant said it seems that sometimes horses can just "....cut themselves on air....." She also said with the long winter hair it is sometimes difficult to see injuries....


Here is a photo of the injury. Don't look if you are squeemish.